Perfect, meetings over, responsibilities attended to and behold – a free day.
What does that mean? Well with no guarantee of connection to the Internet and yesterday’s plane journey meaning that my reports are written I’m done. There are no calls planned, no really super urgent mails, no commitments to nobody. Perfect.
I have 24 Hours before I have to fly out of Florida and back to London.
So what to do? Nothing!
Walk along a deserted beach, watch the sun come up. Switch my mind off the usual stuff – just disengage from it all. That’s when I realize just how tough that is. I mean I know that it’s hard to switch off – but it’s another thing completely to have the space and time, no excuse and then above all the discipline to do it. The noise and pressure of nothing to do screams at me.
Breaking Through The 5 Levels of Conscious Despair
Level Zero
Removing everything, every distraction so that you let other stuff in – it’s really hard. First of all your mind plagues you about what you ought to be doing, then what you must have forgotten – and finally just makes you feel bad that doing nothing is a shameful thing. You lazy schmuck!
Then you rationalize why that’s ridiculous and start to disengage.
Level 1
Watching the waves roll into an immense white beach, wondering how the gulls survive the fierce ocean winds, why did people choose to settle in land infested with Alligators, Mosquitos and phenomenal humidity. Not to mention a theme park every 10 miles along the coast. Actually seeing the waves. Wondering how that power got into that water. my mind is going this way and that. Totally unsure what I’m supposed to be thinking.
Level 2
How insignificant I am and how amazing the idea of nature is. What the hell am I thinking and why? And then I realize that all these things are just an appetizer to the chasm – the hell of indefinable thoughts that show up when these ideas start to wane. Deep inside my mind lay real peaks and valleys – at the very core of why switching off is so difficult. I am starting to not be able to think consciously about anything. It’s a black hole.
Level 3
I’m starting to battle with the prehistoric imprinting of the subconscious. The mind creates images of nothing at all but with pictures. These mad unpictures are so impenetrable that words have not been created to describe this bleak and yawning experience. What is that swift and fleeting streak across my mind. Where is it coming from and what am I supposed to do with it.
I’ve reached the extreme of my consciousness – as I approach it my subconscious is not letting me anywhere near. Machine guns, infested swamps and snake pits stand in my way. I am locked out. Nobody put my name on the door. I know something much bigger lies there but I can’t get at it. My mind flickers and goes blank. A split second. I’m falling.
Level 4
Something kicks. A light from nowhere. A crack of sound in the trees. Some hot blood. Is it blood? A chemical probably. I realize what a privilege it is to have this short span of life to enjoy. I stop worrying about all these things and just enjoy the fact that I am alive and thinking and incredibly lucky to be in this amazing place. The incredible whack of energy – this thought fires fresh passion in my mind. Everything I’m looking at holds new possibilities, experiences and energy – my mind now consuming them in the way it always has but without all the paraphernalia of my daily routine and responsibility. The sea, this town, the trees and the beach. I realize what it is to be a human again.
And now it’s all gone again. I’m back.
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