The dynamic range of existence
an experiment in getting bored
I never get bored.
Okay let me walk back on that immediately.
What I mean is, I don’t mind being bored. It’s true - I have a higher than normal capacity for just sitting and doing nothing. I like to think of boredom as the quiet part of a song. It exists so that the loud part actually feels loud. If you are constantly stimulated, and are main-lining shallow entertainment, the really enriching stuff won’t seem as enriching. Those awe worthy moments won’t hit you as hard. This concept of ‘dynamic range’ can be applied to not just music or photography, but to our experience of the world itself.
Have you ever cut sugar out of your diet for some time? You only know how sweet a normal mug of tea with 1.5 tsp of sugar is, after you have abstained from it for a few days.
But the last couple of years, post COVID I think, I have sort of forgotten how to just sit with my self. Binging and mind less content consumption, which was, during those dreadful months - starting March 2020 - a coping mechanism to keep the scares away; is now the default way of being.
I live such an over stimulated life! I have so many devices - a phone, a laptop, an iPad and a Kindle. These devices are with me almost 24x7. Even in the shower - I take my phone and put on a specific playlist. I know to wash out the shampoo after the chorus of a particular song has begun, and so on (playlist reveal at a 1,000 subscribers - I promise). And I am so focused on not wasting time, I even plan leisure. From the moment I wake up, I am listening to some podcast or audiobook - almost always for pleasure and sometimes for information. My day is jampacked with scheduled entertainment. And the unscheduled moments (those spent waiting in the line at Reliance Fresh, or in line at the boarding gate) are filled with the many infinite feeds at our disposal. And now that we are talking about screens, I think what is even more shocking that my screen time numbers is the number of times I unlock my phone. Unlocking your phone, opening an app and closing it a few seconds later is the digital equivalent of opening the fridge, and shutting it almost immediately.
Anyways, in an attempt to claw back my life and my attention from the algorithms, I decided to run an experiment. On a 15+ hour journey from Ahmedabad to Melbourne I decided to not watch or listen to anything. I had even disallowed myself the option of scrolling through the in-flight entertainment screen. Heck - not even the mesmerizing flight preview which shows the flight path and altitude and outside temperature and other geeky stuff (The only time I looked at the screen was to browse through the in-flight menu).
And it was wonderful. I re-discovered my love for people watching. How fun is just looking at people doing their own thing (it sounds creepier than it is. I promise. It is completely benign). Anytime I noticed something peculiar about a person on the flight, I felt like I was Shawn from Psych. I slept for only ~4 ish hours. The rest of the time, I was just sitting. Twiddling my thumbs, looking at what the cabin crew was upto, talking with my parents who were right next to me, and just letting my brain wander. I came up with a lot of cool ideas for content projects and such.
I don’t really know what the point of this post is - but I quite like the fact that I came up with the phrase “dynamic range of existence”.
Ok Bye!