Winter in New York City can be unforgiving. Freezing temperatures forcing you inside cramped dwellings. The minimal sunlight you do get, unable to be enjoyed because of the frostbitten climate. While most of the northeast was engulfed last weekend in negative temperatures, trying to find the will to survive through winter, I, like many others, thought through ways to pass the time inside.
Figuring out ways to keep yourself busy, or entertain yourself, is a problem few people spend much energy on these days. I myself have spent countless hours scrolling, streaming, binging, gaming – all in an effort to cognitively disassociate after long days.
Apps, social media, iPhones - a never ending buffet of dopamine that masks passive consumption for activity.
The end results of which leaves you feeling more tired and stressed than before. Cortisol spiked and dopamine depleted.
Alas, with the benefit of an empty apartment (my fiancée was traveling for work), and after my two-year-old golden retriever and I survived a jaunt into the polar vortex; I did something I had been avoiding. I did something I too often use the aforementioned distractions to avoid.
I actually sat down, with a pen and a piece of paper, turned my phone off – and spent time writing by hand.
Now my personal impetus was of the self improvement variety (I found a simple pdf “workbook” aimed at pushing you to reflect and clarify your own intentions, limitations, and goals) – but any version would have sufficed. Journaling, coloring, note taking, doodling.
Now why did I do this? Was I struck by some sort of inspiration for self improvement? Did being locked in an apartment, unable to leave because of negative temperatures, drive me to look inward? Was I struck by a need to confront my deep rooted issues so strongly I couldn’t help but write thoughts out by hand?
Hardly. I, like many a modern person, had a backlog of articles, videos, activities, tasks saved “for some later time”. A growing pile of mental loose ends that in the moment I deemed important, but not important enough to stop whatever I was doing.
I finally decided enough was enough, and freezing temperatures, an empty apartment (aside from a snoozing puppy) was enough impetus to say ‘you know what – I’m actually going to do one of these things’. I didn’t have anywhere to be, and instead of snacking on attention junk food, I was going to write with a pen and paper.
By the end, I felt completely invigorated and refreshed.
I feel little need to go into the specifics here regarding the self improvement stuff, you probably have your own backlog of articles, exercises and activities you can work through.
What blew me away about this specific exercise was the clarity with which it presented, and required you to actually write the words by hand. The magic of holding a pen in your hand, thinking through what you actually want to expend energy putting on a piece of paper sharpens your thoughts and output.
In an age where everything and anything can be created by technology, when your hand is actually sore from writing it forces you to figure out what matters.
In an ever increasing world of speed, optimization, efficiency - the deliberate art of slowing down, and physically grounding yourself in something is a relic of bygone times.
But maybe our boomer parents were on to something - as my hand grew sore from the pen in my hand, writing down ten sentences on “the ideal version of myself” and “what limiting beliefs I tell myself” I realized that, yes, the exercise was stimulating. But the real value was forcing myself to clarify what I actually wanted, what matters to me, and steps I can take to get there.
As the hours passed, I found myself getting deeper and deeper into my answers, approaching views and thoughts I had never sat with before.
The exercise also helped me anchor to the present moment, and ultimately to myself. I wasn’t rotting away on the couch watching someone else do something, I was actively using my own mind and skillset.
It brought me back to why I enjoy writing in the first place. It’s great to create something sure, and my mom gets a lot of enjoyment out of these articles, however ultimately it’s a way for me to take unlimited external stimuli and make them into something of my own.
Maybe it has been the artificial intelligence boom, or just my own inability to stay offline, but I increasingly find myself stressed, exhausted and overwhelmed with external stimuli. The latest viral thread, trending topic, hot tea, controversial sports take. Not even to broach things like political scandals, economic concerns. All of it creates a constant sense of mental nausea, your brain sick from constant stimulants and overindulgence.
Find something that allows you to unplug from the matrix–to use a cliche analogy.
Maybe for you it’s listening to music, exercising, catching up with friends, it can literally be anything. We all need something that allows us to disconnect from the attention machines, telling us what to think and what to do.
I now grasp why people got into gardening, or why my dad liked using tools and fixing things.
Maybe it can be something as simple as going for a walk (except when it’s -15 degrees out but you get my point), and not listening to a podcast at 1.5x speed or anything at all.
Because that’s the thing - when you’re constantly being stimulated and force fed inputs externally, it’s impossible to generate thoughts of your own. Your internal operating system can’t come up with outputs if it’s expending all its energy on processing inputs.
After about three hours, my puppy woke up, and it was almost time for a second bathroom break.
It felt great to finally sit down and work through something I had saved in the “do later” digital pile.
The real benefit was sitting down and writing by hand, and clarifying my own thoughts.
Back out into the frostbitten wind we went, but I felt mentally a thousand pounds lighter. I didn’t know how long the dog and I were going to be out, but I felt closer to knowing where we were going.
Once again, Mom enjoyed this article. It brought me back to the age of Pre-teen Dante when you were ALWAYS writing something ( yes, I still have all those movie scripts).
Digital Band-Aiding. It's what we all do as a tonic for the stress of life. We divert attention away from things and not towards them. But like a pot of boiling water, eventually you can't keep the lid on much longer before it bubbles over. Sitting and writing without distraction forces us to face ourselves – which we are becoming unable to do so in a world of dopamine anesthesia