In search of mental clarity
For some time now, I’ve been experiencing that my thoughts are running around at a high speed all the time, which is quite exhausting. I’ve read a lot of articles and books on meditation, mindfulness and various philosophies that are supposed to help calm the brain and help you live a peaceful and good life.
In theory all this sounds good, who wouldn’t want to be in control of their thoughts and interests, to concentrate fully when they feel like it or to let their thoughts drift freely like a leaf floating down a river.
But there’s a problem, what else but the same brain we set out to improve here. Take meditation, for example. It’s a really good idea and an exercise that I’ve tried myself on several occasions. Unfortunately, it often goes so that I can commit to it for a week or two, then either life gets in the way or I find a new interest. Crocheting is quite a nice and meditative hobby, it would be nice to learn. After all, I want to become a good at drawing and after that I could write a book. Where is the meditation again? Anyway, I should find time to go to the gym, see friends, go to work, and at some point it would be good to sleep too, apparently.
Same with hobbies, at the moment I want to collect and play with Pokemon cards, Magic the Gathering cards, really learn to draw, write a blog and fantasy stories, play video games with friends, look after the dogs and learn to crochet. In the back of my mind, I’m still thinking about taking up martial arts again, because it’s so much fun and exercise is healthy anyway. How can you find one or two things to commit to in all this mess? The fact is that after 8 hours of sleep (the average recommendation), a 9-hour working day and numerous household chores and taking care of the dogs, the only free time left is the hour per weekday that I want to make the most of. I am leaving out the idea of energy sufficiency here, otherwise this will be rocket science. Or psychology. Let’s not go that far this time.
I’m actually a bit envious of people who can dedicate themselves to a particular hobby and become really good at their chosen subject, ignoring other interests. Whether it’s karate, World of Warcraft, crocheting or car repair. For myself, I have noticed a phenomenon that often when I focus on one thing, I find myself missing something else. When I was doing karate I started to wonder if I should try judo or brazilian jiu-jitsu, when I was doing aikido I started to miss punching and kicking. When I read a book I might feel like playing a video game and when I play that game I feel like playing another game. This varies from day to day and week to week and makes me feel like I’ve done a lot but haven’t really accomplished anything. At the same time, I feel tired and I can’t concentrate on anything, even my hobbies. The same phenomenon can be observed at work: chronic multi-tasking forces me to jump from one task to another without clearly completing things, except in rare cases where I can get into flow state and focus on the task at hand so that I sometimes forget to take breaks. The next day, my brain is completely fried and I feel like I don’t have enough energy to do anything.
So what’s the advice? I honestly don’t know, otherwise I wouldn’t be in this situation anymore. However, I have found that social media and scrolling through my phone with my brain turned off are making it worse. So I have tried to reduce this, with varying results. When I am tired, I spend more time on the phone than when I am rested.
I’m also pretty sure that my job at a service desk made it worse, where the interruptions were constant, every few (or ten) minutes. So now the project is to learn to focus on one thing at a time. The monotasking could be turned into a new rebellion, resisting the glorification of society’s multitasking and focusing on what we are biologically meant to do.
I don’t remember any such problem from my childhood, when there were no smartphones and the Internet was in its infancy. Perhaps my parents disagree and remember things differently. I probably don’t have ADHD here, although some of the things referred to in this article might hint at it a bit.
