OK, that’s it. I’m turning off the electronic toys for the afternoon. No more sensory input for awhile; let me digest what I’ve been absorbing all day and week. Turn off the TV, sign out of the apps and all the other noise. Let me think about what I think. Then, once I’ve thought for awhile, maybe I’ll be that as it may.
I look up and around the room and discover my neck needed that stretching, rotating motion. I don’t move enough. Oh, I get up and walk from chair to chair, including the transport that moves the chair from here to there at 70 mph, so that I may walk to another chair to sit for a few more hours, but I need to actually move for awhile. I am more than a few pounds of flesh, and it would be useful and healthy to reduce their number.
On the other hand, it is nice to sit and do nothing for a little bit of time. Of course, I’m not actually doing nothing — I’m sitting and writing about doing nothing. I’m also writing about doing something besides sit. And I’m writing about how nice it is to have some time to do nothing. “Do or do not. There is no try,” but sometimes “Do not” is a valid choice.
I scream a silent scream, because I just had the impulse to turn the sensory inputs back on and type the last three paragraphs, which would start the cycle all over again. I need to sit for more than a handful of minutes. There will be time enough later to type — as I prove by typing this a few hours after I wrote it for you to read now. I’m in some sort of meta trance as I write this with a pen on paper to re-type later for mass consumption, or as much of a mass as I can muster.
Mostly I need a breath. “Stop the world, I want to get off” — a fun but honest thought conjured decades ago, and the ride has only increased in speed since then. It is a relief to empty one’s head from time to time, to let sleeping dogs lie and take a breath.