Yesterday evening, when I should (could) have been writing, I once again fell prey to the Demon of Procrastination. I thought of all the pointless, useless things I could do instead of writing, and when I had done all of them to the point of boredom, I still couldn’t summon up enough motivation to struggle on with my current Life’s Purpose. So I decided to watch a bit of tele instead.
Surprise, surprise. The viewing choices seemed to be: a load of crap, a load of depressing news, a load of toss, oh… and what’s this?… another load of crap. I’m sure it wasn’t like this when I was a kid. Whatever happened to Bonanza and The Saint? And The Man from Uncle? Hang on a minute… they were crap too. Oh well.
“I know,” I thought, peering mole-like at the tiny buttons on the enormous remote control, “I’ll watch something that Simon (in his gadget-exploiting wisdom) has recorded.” Eventually I discovered a button that made a list appear. Suddenly a world of interesting viewing possibilities was my oyster! Or not. Such a long list of recorded programmes. Such a long list of Things I Wouldn’t Want To Watch In A Million Years. Clearly I need to take control of the remote a bit more often.
Undeterred (because, more than anything, I really didn’t want to have to face the Writing That Was Not Getting Done) I scrolled through the list a second time. Hmmm. All the vaguely interesting programmes were ones that I couldn’t watch, because Simon and I watch them together. That’s the rule. Everything we normally watch together has to wait, unsampled, until the return of the traveller. But hang about… here’s something that my Wise Friend drew to my attention when I was last in Ingurland, that I’m pretty sure Simon has already seen. The first of three episodes of something called “The Big Silence“. That should fill the gaping hole in my armoury of avoidance activities nicely.
Well, what it actually did was remind me of why it was that I had wanted to leave work, leave the city, and live a new and simple life in the middle of the countryside, in the first place. And it smacked me in the face with the realisation that, even here, in a setting so conducive to the Pursuit of Silence, I have pretty well managed to fill my head with the busy noise of a thousand and one trivial things that very successfully distract me from the serious business of Listening To My Soul.
True Silence is indeed an elusive thing. And much as my soul craves it, my mind avoids it. What is it frightened of, I wonder? To discover the answer to that question, I will have to sit still, be silent and listen.
But before I do, I might just do a bit of writing…..
