Creating space 🎨

“I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.”
— Blaise Pascal

🚗 Wandering around

For most of my life, I have always stayed in one place. Same neighborhood, same school. Nothing in my life changed so much.

With much of my life constant, I learned to see majesty out of the mundane.

Concurrently, I was always seeking something out of life. My mind was always wandering. I always felt the need to be doing something. Why? I was unsure.

One thing I was sure of is that I knew what Jean-Paul Sartre meant when he said,

"If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company."

I had to learn how to be still. To enjoy solitude. To do sabbath. To be a being.

This year, I got to physically move around a lot. With movement, I knew I needed slow days.

I wondered how I came to have this belief. It is definitely a combination of various lessons I had to learn. Most of it was fueled by Pico Iyer.

🍃 The Art of Stillness

During college, I followed Pico Iyer's work. He is known as a travel writer. I watched his talks, and I listened to podcasts that had him as a guest.

I gained insights from him as he talked & wrote about the importance of stillness over the years. Despite that, it's not until this year that I read his TED book, The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere.

There are three key lessons from Pico Iyer that I carry with me:

Solitude: Freedom from distraction ⛰️

"Going nowhere…isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply."

I enjoy solitude. I feel like I get to be my truest self when I have enough quiet time alone, without the influence of other people. This might not be for everyone. Nonetheless, I always recommend learning how to be alone.

Moses received the Torah from Mount Sinai. Jesus went to the wilderness the night before choosing his disciples. Who knows what revelation presents itself when you're alone and free of distractions?

Reflection: Changing perspective 💭

“So much of our lives takes place in our heads – in memory or imagination, in speculation or interpretation – that sometimes I feel that I can change my life by changing the way I look at it.”

Being still allows me to look at things differently. When I don't like how things are going, I pause. Examine each thought. Examine each emotion.

As William James would say, "The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another."

Recollection: Creating lasting memories 📷

"Every time I take a trip, the experience acquires meaning and grows deeper only after I get back home and, sitting still, begin to convert the sights I’ve seen into lasting insights."

My frequency of recollecting experiences has varied greatly over the past few years. One thing has remained consistent–life becomes more meaningful only when I look back at it.

Building into Iyer's thought, a trip for me will have three levels of joy: planning it, experiencing it, and recollecting it. In other words, I take joy from the anticipation, movement, and stillness.

And in stillness, there's meaning.

“Movement makes richest sense when set within a frame of stillness.” – Pico Iyer

💡 Other insights

As reading the book took me back to college, here are other insights that I feel had a lasting impact on me over the past decade:

• This article on why need to slow down our lives is when I discovered Pico Iyer.
• Susan Cain has a TED talk on a closely related topic.
• One perspective I see life with is from the ancient practice of memento mori. For me, it's synonymous with this too shall pass and seize the day.
• This insight about how personal projects can fill your well of reserves is one reason I started writing again.