without a screen
dear friends,
As I wrote in #53, after spending an entire year writing about gentleness every week I’ve noticed a few things. Gentleness has given me access to more wisdom and confidence. I’m able to meet the good and bad moments — and I have a lot of each every single day — with more equanimity than I thought possible. Living gently has dramatically increased my capacity to maintain an open heart, even with those I disagree with ideologically. But by far the most intriguing shift I’ve noticed is that living gently has made my life more fun.
Fun?
I know. It’s not a result I expected either when I set out to find a path for living a good life, a life aligned with principles I value like honesty, kindness, equanimity, compassion, wisdom and lovingkindness. I didn’t expect that I would feel lighter, more playful, more inclined to smile and laugh. But that’s exactly what happened.
The relationship between gentleness and fun is profound. Both require us to be connected to our senses. Because modern life is so dominated by what is visual and verbal, many of us have become strangers to experiences that cannot easily be reduced to a screen. We all know that there are far too many global corporations with profit motives tied directly to keeping us attached to our devices. And while screens offer a simulacrum of fun — who can argue with the chuckle a good cat video delivers? — that short dopamine hit to the brain is not the same as a full-bodied experience. We all know this deep in our bones, but it’s hard to fight against the current of modern life. The effort to reconnect to our embodied lives, though, is worth it. Reconnecting with physicality and sensory embodiment can transform how we engage with everything.
So, for September the challenge is to experience something fun every single day of the month. There is only one rule: no screens may be involved.
The fun can be as elaborate, time-consuming and expensive as you want. Or, it can be simple, brief, and free. I’m planning to do a mix. The goal of the month is to come away with a sense of what truly delights you. Here are some thoughts I have about my own plans for the month:
(1) If you don’t know where to start, start with things you liked as a kid. I was a dancer for years, and although I’ll probably never attempt jump splits on a football field again, dancing was one of the first activities I tried when I started reconnecting with my own body. I feel as carefree dancing to Depeche Mode now as I did in the 1980s. Of course, now I’m dancing in my kitchen with no one watching. After-dinner clean up is a mini dance party not infrequently. Our child selves know what real fun feels like. If you loved coloring as a kid, try that. Maybe it was tinkering with radio parts or riding a bike.
(2) Accept that some people — maybe even you — will think you’re wasting your time. Our culture tends to give non-monetizable activities short shrift. At first, I felt a little uncomfortable, maybe even defensive, about spending my time doing things that had no hope of making money or garnering accolades. Then I got over it. Life is about how we spend our time and energy. Doing something fun on top of your regularly-scheduled life will take time and energy, too. The question at the end of September will be: Is it worth it? For me, the answer is absolutely, unequivocally yes.
(3) Repeat the things that work. Over the last four years of living gently, my ability to distinguish sensory nuances has improved dramatically. It’s helpful to have a good inner vocabulary of what delights you and what drains you in order to make wise decisions. Until I repeatedly experienced my mood and energy levels on afternoons after I took a walk outside, I believed my brain when it told me that I shouldn’t take the time because I had more important things to do and, besides, taking a walk didn’t really make any difference.
When you find something that lightens your mood and brings a smile to your face (or at least loosens the frown), pay attention. Try doing that thing again, maybe exactly the same way as before and maybe you add a twist. Baking brownies is fun for you, but you really don’t have any time today. Maybe try making a new mocktail that will take you all of three minutes? You may find that the challenge of a new recipe is also fun, or maybe you’ll realize that chocolate must be involved. The more you practice what’s fun for you, the better you’ll get both at enjoying life and at knowing how to navigate your own inner weather patterns.
(4) Label and keep track (or at least try to remember). Like with everything, you get out of it what you put in. The goal of the month is to get to know what is truly fun for you. The more things you can find that fit the bill, the better because when life gets tough (and it always will), knowing how to give yourself a break with a smile is superpower. Writing things down can be helpful in this regard. If you want to go completely nerdy, you can also rate and describe the activity. For me, a walk in the park always leaves me feeling better than before the walk, but the sense is pleasant more than exuberant in the way that dancing to something from my happy playlist is. I learned to distinguish the difference by keeping track in the early days of this practice.
If you like getting granular, do. Jot down the thing you did along with a word describing the type of fun you felt – delight, pleasure, comfort, amusement, bliss, happiness, excitement. You can even quantify the reliability of the fun. Do you feel better every time you sketch? If that’s the case, the next time you’re feeling low and your brain tells you to just take a break by scrolling on your device, you’ll know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the more skillful choice is to take that five-ten-fifteen minutes to find your pencils and sketch instead.
That’s it for now! Have fun having fun. And if you find something helpful here, why not forward this challenge to a friend?
warmly,
alison
