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On Mind-Wandering

 I recently reconnected with a friend from college that I haven't spoken to in over a year. She asked me what new hobbies or skills I'd taken on during the Covid Pandemic and subsequent lockdown. As a sidebar, what a great question. Flattering as well, as she would consider me to be someone looking for self improvement and new skills. I informed her that I'd become a runner, doing hundreds of miles in the last 6 months. I told her that I'd found great relief and relaxation from it - really the progress of it. Growing up I'd always liked the start of things and the process of seeing results - watching something grow and develop at my will and by my own effort. Running is that same manifestation for me. 

When I run I meditate. It's as if I'm in a room, and the lights are off, and my eyes are closed. The projections of the road and my surroundings flash on the wall in front of me but my eyes are closed so all I can feel is that things are changing, I'm devoting little to no conscious capacity to the details, but I'm aware that there is change occurring. And I'm meditating. Instead of strings of thought being fed through my prefrontal cortex, I'm checking items off a checklist as they pop up. Except I can't make sense of the items and I can't consciously decide which to check off next. It's simply happening. All the while I focus on my breath and the sounds of my shoes making contact with the pavement. And in that linear and simple focus I can feel enormous calm. In the same way someone does Ohms while meditating. Despite the intense burn, the suffering, the doubt of being able to maintain pace, finish in a certain time, and keep my heart rate in a normal range I feel like I'm in the right place at the right time, doing the right thing. It's not dissimilar to my feelings on weightlifting, but there are particularities which make it a different experience, and one that I obtain different effects from - the main one being the high heart rate; when the heart rate becomes elevated and the fight begins to keep oxygen in the brain, a subconscious switch is flipped which alters the conscious mind, and this is where the difference arrives for me.

She informed me that she'd been painting since the lockdown, and that it had become an outlet for her to express her creativity outside of her job which was very mathematical and numerical in nature. In other words, she was allowing the right side of her brain to exercise and her left side to rest. I began to think that perhaps that benefit is the same thing that I'm deriving from running. But upon further examination I realized that wasn't correct. I wasn't flexing the right side of my brain and shutting off the left side as she was, I was putting myself into a state of mind wandering. The same sensation that I get when I drive by myself. But I realized another thing, Mind wandering is what I truly enjoy at the very core, not necessarily creativity, albeit music and playing guitar do bring me creative freedom, it's the mind wandering that I seek. As a child I'd dump a whole box of leggos on my floor and build for hours and hours. Creating things from scratch. And although it may seem like was an expression of raw creativity, it was moreover another context for me to mind-wander. To me, it is the closest I can get to true meditation.

Then I thought about writing. Why do I like it? Why do I like to write down my thoughts on things and get those thoughts organized and on-the-record? I understand now that by doing that, I can free up space for more mind wandering and thus the discovery of new ideas and new actualizations. A lot of what I do is driven by my competitive nature, or by my hedonistic desires, or by my biological programming, or even by my tendencies for organization and order. But at its core, the things I chose to do with my free time, such as driving, running, lifting, playing music, playing chess, hiking, snowboarding, writing, and reading, allow me to achieve a large or small degree of mind wandering; a state of mind where I can see the world more clearly, think, wonder, and clear the path for my next thoughts and actions.

Mind-Wandering is a true separation between sentient beings and non-sentient beings. A horse can run through a field but it cannot contemplate the nature of the universe whilst doing so. It is the action derived as a byproduct of consciousness, mechanistic and purposeful. Everyone does it, but is everyone aware of it?


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