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scottahillWatching Miriam is hardest when I'm trying to do something else, when I decide that, to help pass the time, I'm going to read the web or listen to my iPod or read a book while watching her. She's really very good at entertaining herself, but when she reaches her limit she notices my lack of attention, and wants what I have, wants to do what I'm doing. That's when I get the most frustrated, and the most worn out. What I should do instead is to give her my whole attention, to focus completely on her, and then I can give her what she wants and she is happy and I can enjoy her too.
The same thing is true with my work: I would work best if I could become completely absorbed into it, and get into the "flow", but for some reason, whenever I sit down to work, I feel like I need something in the background-- music, radio, TV, whatever-- to "make it easier" to work, even though it doesn't make it easy to work.
I am afraid of boredom, I think. Afraid to be alone with my thoughts? And because I avoid the risk of boredom, I lose the chance to experience flow. When I was a child, I was very good at becoming completely absorbed in projects, and was notoriously oblivious to my surroundings. I don't know what happened. Maybe it happens to everyone when they grow up. Maybe I was so often accused of being oblivious that I'm afraid of the flow, afraid of losing track of time (this was particularly true when I was working somewhere and I needed to take the train home-- the fear I had of missing my train kept me from concentrating on my work). Maybe time seems more precious to me now than it did, and so I'm less willing to let it slip through my fingers, which paradoxically tends to make me waste more time as my fear overcomes my ability to concentrate.
I've recently started playing racquetball (by myself) again, once a week, and the local courts are wonderful: almost always empty, and very well soundproofed. In other places I've played, I've been distracted and annoyed by the sounds of other players, or music from a nearby weight room or aerobics class. Here, where there's none of that, I've discovered that I can get into "the zone", hitting the ball off the wall repeatedly until a half hour has passed without my realizing it. It's amazing. And yet every week, as I get ready to go, I think about bringing along my iPod and speakers, feeling this dread that the trick won't work this time, that after 10 minutes I will be painfully bored and unable to go on. "Flow" seems like such a magical event, and therefore not something to be counted on-- but fear is certainly an obstacle to it.
My conception about meditation is that it is meant to overcome this fear of doing nothing; by forcing yourself to sit still and do nothing, you prove to yourself that "nothing" does not hurt you, and once one is comfortable with nothing, it is easier to build something on top of that nothing. Sounds great, but it will take a great effort of will to overcome my fear in the first place, in order to take up meditation as a regular habit. But perhaps parenting could be a type of enforced meditation, and bring me to where I want to be.
The same thing is true with my work: I would work best if I could become completely absorbed into it, and get into the "flow", but for some reason, whenever I sit down to work, I feel like I need something in the background-- music, radio, TV, whatever-- to "make it easier" to work, even though it doesn't make it easy to work.
I am afraid of boredom, I think. Afraid to be alone with my thoughts? And because I avoid the risk of boredom, I lose the chance to experience flow. When I was a child, I was very good at becoming completely absorbed in projects, and was notoriously oblivious to my surroundings. I don't know what happened. Maybe it happens to everyone when they grow up. Maybe I was so often accused of being oblivious that I'm afraid of the flow, afraid of losing track of time (this was particularly true when I was working somewhere and I needed to take the train home-- the fear I had of missing my train kept me from concentrating on my work). Maybe time seems more precious to me now than it did, and so I'm less willing to let it slip through my fingers, which paradoxically tends to make me waste more time as my fear overcomes my ability to concentrate.
I've recently started playing racquetball (by myself) again, once a week, and the local courts are wonderful: almost always empty, and very well soundproofed. In other places I've played, I've been distracted and annoyed by the sounds of other players, or music from a nearby weight room or aerobics class. Here, where there's none of that, I've discovered that I can get into "the zone", hitting the ball off the wall repeatedly until a half hour has passed without my realizing it. It's amazing. And yet every week, as I get ready to go, I think about bringing along my iPod and speakers, feeling this dread that the trick won't work this time, that after 10 minutes I will be painfully bored and unable to go on. "Flow" seems like such a magical event, and therefore not something to be counted on-- but fear is certainly an obstacle to it.
My conception about meditation is that it is meant to overcome this fear of doing nothing; by forcing yourself to sit still and do nothing, you prove to yourself that "nothing" does not hurt you, and once one is comfortable with nothing, it is easier to build something on top of that nothing. Sounds great, but it will take a great effort of will to overcome my fear in the first place, in order to take up meditation as a regular habit. But perhaps parenting could be a type of enforced meditation, and bring me to where I want to be.
