@angadc:

That thing you do to drown out the noise of your isolation is what causes the isolation in the first place.

In a recent post, I suggested that noise is drowning out the signals of the world, and while this is true to an extent, I did not mention that we let the noise in. There is something to be said for the fact that we can curate our media to a finer degree than those from the era of television and radio. But we can also curate our thoughts. By externalizing our plans, we empty the mind so that new thoughts can emerge in meditation, dream, and other altered states. 

When I was in my late teens, I began meditating, and got quite good at it. Life intervened; the more engaged I became with the external world, the less I practiced meditation.

I know now that as we get busier, meditation becomes more important to centering your world of thoughts. Meditation is a reset button, a degaussing that disperses that static build-up that overwhelms the senses and exhausts the mind. I spent ten years being busy, keeping everything in my head. This habit became unsustainable as I took on more and more responsibilities at my job.

It wasn’t until recently that I read Pragmatic Thinking and Learning, and started learning how to process the information I was storing in my head and putting it down on paper. Based on my discoveries in reading that book and a fair bit of stumbling around, I’ve developed a system that involves two notebooks: the Book of Thought & the Book of Action.

The Book of Thought is a spiral bound notebook of graph paper that I use to take down notes, mindmapping, sketch out ideas, and doodle in. Doodling is a really useful way to engage multiple parts of your brain when you’re trying to absorb dense information, and I recommend doing it during meetings even if it gets you in trouble.

The Book of Action is a red hardcover Moleskine that I use to keep track of next actions required to conclude a project. There is something about the act of telling yourself what you’re going to do next, in writing, that makes you do it. The satisfying kinesthetic component of striking out completed tasks creates anendorphin rush that keeps me coming back for more. I use a red one because red is associated with intensity and momentum!

This act of creating an exocortex has allowed me the peace of mind to return to my meditative practice. As a result, I’m more creative, calm, and collected in my day to day activities.