Disquietude and Solace
I wish we would slow down a bit.
There are things I wish were different. I wish I wouldn’t spend so much time on my phone. I’m a week into college (as of writing this; by the time I finish this, it will have been a month), and I’ve already been in social settings where people were in such close physical proximity, yet their minds were worlds apart, each person engaged in their own little rectangular, electronic brick. I’ve seen and done this too. Four people, sitting in a booth and eating breakfast, each one of them on their phones. I hate how if I was one of those four people, it would seem completely normal, yet watching from afar, I would feel a bit disappointed and slightly defeated. The presence of a friend is no longer enough of a reason to stay off the phone. I wish it still was.
I wish Instagram didn’t exist. I don’t think we were made to digest this much information so quickly, most, if not all of it, utterly inane. Our brains are not going to stay the same if we constantly stimulate ourselves, and I don’t think the effects of frequently seeking this amount of information and stimuli are positive in the slightest. If we all communicated and kept in touch with people through text messages, we would all be a bit happier. I don’t know how much total time I’ve wasted away on social media apps and websites, but I know I would be disgusted at myself if I ever found out.
Social media was something I was told to engage in by my friends. At first, I told myself, “I’ll only use it to keep in touch with people. I’m not going to scroll reels. I know they’re bad for me.” But slowly, I succumbed, despite warning myself not to. Nowadays, I still find myself instinctively reaching for it so frequently, even as I have tried in the past to (somewhat successfully) cut the amount of time I spend on it. The compulsivity of this behavior despite the negative outcomes and impacts are what keep me coming back.
Now, it sounds so familiar. I bet quitting would suck. Cold turkey, probably even worse. The anxiety and the racing mind do not sound fun to deal with.
Life feels so busy because so much time is spent towards fruitless endeavors. Why is it that I will voluntarily waste hours of my time on actively harmful things? Why is it that I tell myself I want to spend my leisure time doing certain things, yet I constantly find myself not engaging in said activities? I could blame it all on social media, but I don’t think social media is the only cause; I think it’s one side of a coin, and the other side is equally ugly.
As I started going to high school, I was constantly told by myself and others to get into a good college. I kept pushing myself; I told myself the neglect of my physical health, the withering of my relationships with my family, and the perennial stress I put myself under would lead to the supposed success in my future coming to fruition. It only led to a downhill spiral I descended, and I reached the lowest point in November of my eleventh-grade year. I never want to relive that again.
I fell into the loop of working hard, getting accomplishments to prove myself, and working even harder to achieve greater things. I neglected everything that makes me human. And all for what? I’m happy with where I am now, but I wish I got the time I spend grinding back to do things I would’ve found much more fulfillment in.
I wish I wasn’t so busy exploiting myself.
I hate this culture of working so hard, pushing yourself so much, just to stay on the treadmill or climb the ladder or whatever metaphor you want to use, and praying that you advance slightly ahead of other people. Life isn’t meant to be sucked so dry of its beauty. We’re not meant to have our time extracted and optimized, nor are we meant to have every aspect of our life quantified. We’re meant to live. We’re supposed to experience things, connect with others, feel deeply, and create memories before we die. Sitting in a cubicle or standing behind a counter for eight hours does none of these.
Time shouldn’t be something we feel so guilty about spending. There is no obligation to show absolute devotion to your job when you’re born. I wish there wasn’t this pressure to constantly be productive, but I constantly get the message that I always have to be pushing towards some sort of goal, professional or personal, or else I’m throwing time and money down the drain. People push themselves to their limits, again and again, in hopes of reaching their “true potential”, not realizing that, as Byung-Chul Han put it, they’re the master and the slave—their auto-exploitation (self-exploitation) comes from a sense of freedom and the belief that they can achieve anything. When this belief is set in place, however, achieving anything less than desirable is interpreted as a personal failure. The fault is placed on the individual and not the circumstances or the economic system. So many people regret working too much, tipping the work-life scale far beyond balanced and wishing they spent more time on relationships and other forms of self-actualization, but very few regret not pushing themselves harder.
The word otium, Latin for “leisure”, has a meaning far beyond the literal sense. It signified time and space where a person could freely engage in thought and didn’t have to worry about worldly problems. It carried a positive connotation, unlike negotium, which was defined as the lack of leisure and carried a slightly burdensome connotation. Ancient Romans and Greeks would hardly believe that people are willing to work 40, 60, even 80 hour work weeks or spend their free time with their mind still at work and simultaneously believe that it’s good for them, that it’s the best way to live a more fulfilling life. The pressure to work harder and harder at a soulless job heavily contributes to why we have such little otium, and rates of chronic stress and burnout have risen drastically.
Thankfully, I have yet to slave away at a sterile, repetitive job that consumes much of my life. I don’t look forward to it.
But we don’t have to glue these grim, foggy shades to our glasses. We can occasionally replace them with pink ones.
There are mornings where I get up early, wash my face, and open up a journal to start writing. Admittedly, they don’t occur often due to my atrocious sleep schedule, but when they do, it always feels so slow and calm. I can just sit at my desk in silence, under the lamplight. I can watch the sunrise and write my thoughts, my feelings, or my woes in my diary full of secrets and confessions I wouldn’t dare share with anyone. I can contemplate things I wouldn’t have time to contemplate during any other time of day.
There are days when I go on a walk without a phone or a destination. I go purely for the sake of walking. It feels incredibly relaxing. If I have the luxury to set some time aside, free from any responsibilities, then walking around campus always feels so much better than staying sedentary. When there’s always something on my mind or some responsibility I have to take care of, then forgetting about it and letting my brain slow down is… freeing. Like my inside world has been hushed and my surroundings—the crickets, the occasional passing-by of a car, or the cold evening breeze—they all feel so real and present, not as minor inconveniences, but as things to be experienced.
Another thing I rediscover again and again—novelty really does slow time down! I tried ballroom dance for the first time in college and it’s so incredibly fun being bad at something, learning, and having incredibly supportive friends who are willing to help me out. I’ve found it’s easy to fall into a life of repetition that feels dull, so trying new things (which is thankfully especially easy on a college campus) really does help to spice it up.
If we appreciate life as it is, then even despite the worldly issues and problems, life is incredibly beautiful. While this may be coming from a position of privilege, as I am able to attend a wonderful university with plentiful opportunities (although I am struggling to land an internship just as much as anyone else here), I think it is wonderful that we get to live such profound lives and we can experience all sorts of emotions so deeply. People are beautiful far beyond what they let show; their lives are often so much more interesting than they are able to convey to others. I think I’m starting to appreciate that more.
Life Update!
This piece is more personal than what I usually post, but I think it turned out well.
My experience at college now has been slightly mixed, but still overwhelmingly positive. Taking on a lot more responsibility has been going well so far, but I have been putting off things such as internship applications, and I keep telling myself I should apply. The transition from high school is sudden, but easily manageable.
One thing that hasn’t been going as well, in my opinion, is my social life. Even as I’ve become more outgoing during senior year, I still don’t understand how I’m supposed to make closer, better friends. I keep telling myself to give it some time, but I don’t know how much faith I have in that. My experience with the Harvey Scholars community and my time at the retreat have been amazing though. Everyone seems so great and interesting.
Classes are easy, but keeping track of all these assignments is a bit harder. I need to use something better than my Notes app to keep track of these assignments.
Overall, even though I’m a month in, I still need to figure things out and hopefully not get too comfortable.
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