8 MINUTES
I have meditated in the past, so using existing skills, I went into this nothingness with something — a goal to keep my eyes closed. When my eyes are open — signs cause my mind to wander excessively. Truthfully, my mind still wanders with my eyes shut but that’s where the fun is. I turned off the lights, natural light at 9 AM. I sat on the ground with my legs crossed, took my shoes off, sat with my legs crossed. I placed my hands on my knees palms up, which I found to be more significant than palms down. Call me crazy, but I opted to focus on my own energy and its channels. I focused on how the earth felt beneath me, rooting myself into the ground like a tree. I focused on my breath, the life force. I reminded myself to turn my brain off, focus on the present and the now. Often I wanted to think about the future — things I want or need to do. I realized I do this a lot. It is important to appreciate the NOW, each present second. The more I focused on my body, on nothing, I almost felt like a phone being charged, a flow of energy gently rising through me. For a person who is never relaxed, I asked myself is this what relaxation feels like?
16 MINUTES
This was more challenging. I was not in a relaxing environment. Change a naturally lit, quiet room filled with sandalwood incense for a dirty garage with humming lights, gasoline scents and motors running in the distance. I sat in a rolling chair, shoes on and eyes closed. I found myself to be more distracted, uncomfortable, thinking about the concept of nothing. What is nothing? Even while sitting here trying to clear my mind of past and present thoughts, my body is existing which seems more than nothing. It is actually working so hard, silently allowing us to do everything we do on a daily basis. I sit here trying to reflect on nothing while my heart beats and my lungs flow air through me, all while I kindly ask my brain to “do nothing.” To do nothing verses to focus ones attention somehow are so connected in this moment yet the word groups present themselves as unrelated. To pull myself outside of my usual and observe how my brain has been trained to proceed is truly fascinating. Without stepping back, it is hard to notice how we have grown so accustomed to modern social time of go-go-go. Even when taking time to be still, the mind is still trying to keep going.
32 MINUTES
This period of nothing happened at night. I felt exhausted and tired. I laid on the ground and closed my eyes. Unlike the first two sessions, I had to open my eyes to fight off falling asleep. The first few minutes were touch and go until I finally landed in a peaceful place, looking at the white of the ceiling. I still felt the never ending pull to conceptualize the past and plan the future, but mostly I welcomed the absence of thought. The previous sessions were filled with ideas swimming around my brain only cleared via methodical breath. This session, I felt the exhaustion in my bones. The never ending drive to be the best matched by society’s cruel smile of the unknown. I felt such a desire to just quiet my mind and be nothing, that I just laid there, trying not to give into the exhaustion. This caused me to ponder about sleep and its relationship to nothingness. One might think that sleeping is doing nothing, but that cannot be. When you are sleeping, you are resting, your body is recharging. Rest is important but sleep is essential. The act of nothing is something I can’t wrap by head around. Nothing is something. Maybe it is taking time to relax and stop the chatter in my skull. Laying on the ground focusing on nothing made me feel lighter, not as charged as the 8 minute meditation. I was more distracted. There were moments where I just laid on the ground and felt bored, motivating myself to get through it by thinking for a brief second about all the things I could do after I take this pause. Yet throughout it all, I never felt anxious to be separated from technology. In fact, I welcome an absence of technology. Really, it just felt good to take time to disconnect and focus on being.
Personally, I connected to Odell most through her explanations on students work habits. Our shared logic touches on how students are like ducks. She “imagines students as placid-seeming ducks paddling strenuously beneath the water, essentially a joke about isolated struggle in an atmosphere obsessed with performance” (Odell 87). I felt like I had a similar realization about our fast paced society during my 16 minute reflection. Even when trying to slow down and do nothing, my brain was trying to keep paddling. Additionally, I felt drawn to her words, “we subliminally equate feeling burned out to being a good student” (Odell 87). During my 32 minute session of nothing, I could understand the words burned out. Not that I am actually burned out, as I LOVE design, but this petal to the metal, fast paced, I can do it all lifestyle sometimes catches up to you. We’re all human and even with all the coffee in the world, we can only actually accomplish so much in one day. Most days are awesome and bad-ass, but others I have to lay on the floor for 30 minutes and try to shut the world out so I can feel like myself again.
