Just Sit Still, For a Moment

You need not leave your room.

Remain seated at your table

and listen. You need not even listen;

simply wait. You need not even wait;

just be quiet, still, and solitary.

The world will freely offer

itself to you to be unmasked.

It has no choice; it will roll

in ecstasy at your feet.

(Franz Kafka, “The Great Wall of China and Other Stories”)

For now she need not think about

anybody. She could be by herself, by herself.

And that was what now she often felt

the need of---to think; well not even to

think. To be silent; to be alone. All the

being and the doing, expansive,

glittering, vocal, evaporated; and one

shrunk, with a sense of solemnity,

to being oneself; a wedge-shaped core

of darkness, something invisible to

others---Not as oneself did one find

rest ever, in her experience, but as a

wedge of darkness. Losing personality,

losing the fret, the hurry, the stir; and

there rose to her lips always some

exclamation of triumph over life when

things came together in this peace,

this rest, this eternity.

(Virginia Wolf, To The Lighthouse)

These quotes come from a lovely little book edited by Roger Housden, Risking Everything: 110 Poems of Love and Revelation.

Change and movement have always been upon us, but perhaps never more dramatically than today. Everything seems to be running at top speed. Responding, we jump from one thing to another, ceaselessly. Stressed and caught up in the whirlwind of continual movement and change, we can lose touch with ourselves. Distracted, rushed and scattered, we are not in control of our own mental and emotional processes. We suffer, and export our suffering to others.

Paradoxically, even though agitated by the movement barrage, we anxiously seek yet more action, motion, distraction. In our swirling minds, if we are not continuously stimulated or distracted by something, horrible things will happen. We might have to think about things we would rather leave buried. No wonder some of us have no idea who or what we are, living in an illusory world of constant motion. The quotes allude to stopping the merry-go-round, reconnecting with ourselves. “Just be quiet, still, and solitary,” suggests Kafka. And Wolf, “…not even to think. To be silent; to be alone.” Nothing is happening. Nothing needs to happen.

Nothing to force, nothing to expect. Yet, both authors imply that something can happen in this space of quiet and mental rest. Kafka says that “…the world will freely offer itself to you….” Wolf says: “…when things come together in this peace, this rest, this eternity.” What is this something that can happen? A realization that we must separate our wellbeing from the turmoil of life, by not doing (Wu-wei again). Sit quietly. Think nothing. One minute. Multiple times a day.

Slow down. Everything. Movements, thoughts, speaking. The Talmud says, “Life is so short we must move very slowly.” Or we never know where it went. Slowing helps us stay in the present, unlikely to be undermined by our own personal turmoil, or that around us. From cell phones and social media to meetings and exercising. Above all, teach the young, who are in the most danger from the addiction to movement and distraction.

“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” (Blaise Pascal, Pensees)