The Luxury Of Introspection

by ore

Sometimes, midnight is the only time you have to hear yourself. You won’t get enough sleep but at least you’ll finally have enough quiet to undo some of the knots in your head.

Because it’s a noisy world. A noisy, attention-stealing world where introspection is a rarity that we can’t seem to afford.

I catch myself drifting out of myself often. Out to a notification, a message, an unimportant item that demands undeserved urgency.

Then what?

I give in, maybe go down some unrewarding rabbit hole of relative irrelevance. When I come up for light, my original train of thought would have moved on. Anyone selling effective mind markers, the real-life equivalent of save points in games, would make a killing.

Losing my way mentally means losing me time and losing the benefit of whatever debate was going on inside before I walked out on myself.

I’ve tried drawing figurative mind maps but they’re utterly useless if there’s no presence of mind to study them.

I remain lost because I’ve been so relentlessly sidetracked by an overwhelming bombardment of demanding nothings that I cannot sit with myself until I find my way. No introspection.

These days, I’m learning to be ruthless with time allocation. Not more of it, less of it. Anything to hold a fenced-off reserve of mental emptiness for all the thoughts to come. Because, as it turns out, an idle mind is an increasingly priceless thing.

Bench as seen in Sigiria Forest.