Michael Thelen
4y ago
Making sense of how to live better using neuroscience, (evolutionary) psychology, physiology, philosophy, and memes.
This morning, 97 minutes after I meant to check the weather, I finally closed Twitter.
The feeling is like stepping out of a club into the cool 3:00am night air and realizing your body is still vibrating from the chest pounding music. Your head spins a little, and you're a little out of breathe as your heart races. The more you scroll, the faster your craving pace becomes.
But faster your scroll, the less satisfied you feel.
Just stop. All of it. Pause. Is the room moving? Can you be still?
Imagine a dark cozy room with heavy silent drapes, the deep burgundy felt ones you'd find in a mansion's oak wooded library.
One candle's flame atop a desk wobbles like a slow Hawaiian bobble-head in the stillness. It's light barely reaches the walls but spotlights a person sized bubble of space around it on the big desk. There's a book beneath the flame-light open to the first page.
Can you resist wanting to have a seat and read?
Interest and attention pours out of the human spirit when it's not drugged with endless digital media like a circus animal abused and prodded to keep the bright lights and music of the "show-that-must-go-on," spinning.
Less is more. One candle lights more curiosity than a hundred flames. Try it.
Hold the warmth of one candle flame between softly open hands and ask yourself if you'd find more satisfaction beneath all the bright lights and flashing screens of Time Square.
Should you keep scrolling? Is your satisfaction that way...?