18 October, 2018

Enjoyment Through Attention and Meaning

I've been making some errors lately.

I valued content consumption too highly. Listened to too many podcasts, read too many articles, browsed reddit for too many hours. Describing me as time-poor would have been an understatement. It's not that I didn't find the activities worthwhile; to the contrary, I love board game night. Playing my Switch is always a highlight of my day. The new tastes I experience after trolling veg*n cooking videos on youtube are definitely worth it. But when you put it all together, it's just too much.

This week, I started walking between 2–4 a.m. every other day, and one key decision has made it more worthwhile than I could have expected: I left behind my headphones.

I've walked for years. That part isn't new. It was always between 1–2 hours each weekday in half hour increments in downtown DC, or VA, or wherever I happened to be working that day. But I always would listen to podcasts. I felt like I was wasting my time if I wasn't learning something new. I subscribed to podcasts on philosophy, news, economics, effective altruism, rationalism, gaming, history, etc. The more content I consumed, the better I felt. And on the rare occasions that I didn't feel like focusing on something deep, I would put on a lighter podcast or listen to orchestral music. If I was walking, my headphones were on.

But I no longer work in DC. I left my position at ACE last month and I have nowhere regular that I need to walk to anymore. I'd gone from time-poor to time-sufficient. So when I decided to start walking in my local area earlier this week, I didn't feel the pressure to bring my headphones. Instead, I merely listened to the rustling of the leaves for a couple of hours.

Tenmile Creek, just north of where I was this morning.
Tonight, I trekked to Little Seneca Creek in silence. It was glorious. The night air was chill, but invigorating. The deer I saw today disappeared between the trees when I stepped on a twig. The fish weren't visible, but I could hear them playing as they leapt from the water's surface. It felt good.

Black Hill Park is beautiful, and I feel so lucky to live within walking distance.

I must say that I've been thinking about this for a while. Too often I've found myself watching a sub-top-tier tv show while playing on my phone. Or reading about politics while StarCraft matches are going on in the background. Others have also brought this up. CGP Grey posted a video about this a few weeks back that's well-worth watching. (Seriously: if you only click one link in this post, it should either be CGP Grey's video or John Michael Greer's blog post in the penultimate paragraph.Day[9] talked about related issues on stream a few days ago. And when Dorek was still trying to convince me to visit Europe with him, he pounded on this point repeatedly:

At 36, I finally learned what a glacier was.
Hint: It's not the equivalent of an iceberg but on land.
"There's something different about just going out in nature and experiencing it. You get something out of climbing the parapets of a thousand year old wall that isn't he same as just looking up the wall on wikipedia." Dorek described the feeling of backpacking across Australia, looking up at a multitude of stars when no one else was around for many dozens of miles. He reminded me of the peace we felt when we would go to Dauphin Island, walk through the bird sanctuary, and relax on the deserted beach just next door to the sea lab. He'd walk west; I'd walk east. Then we'd sit, too far away from each other to talk or see one another, and wait for the sunrise.

Last year, I went with him to Europe. We saw castles and towns and people and food. But the best part was nature. He took me to a mountain in the Swiss alps overlooking the Aletsch glacier. He pointed me toward an easy peak to climb, then left to climb a tougher peak just nearby. Making it to the top of that peak by myself felt really, really good.

I think the disconnect here has to do with a difference between the way I think and the way some others that I know think. There's a feeling that people sometimes get where the essence of an event or storied thing somehow imbues the physicality of an object. It's the reason why houses where murders take place are avoided by some people. The Smithsonian castle has (what I think is) a really weak exhibit of just bits of random stuff that Americans donated from world events. Like a scrap of cloth from the bedsheet Lincoln died upon. Or a miniscule piece of rock from the Berlin wall. (I was going to link a partially examined life episode on this kind of thing, but I can't recall when it was discussed there.) These things bore me. I don't feel anything special by actually being in a place that I wouldn't otherwise feel from learning about the place. I don't have a feeling that events imbue something extra into physical locations or objects.

Don't get me wrong; I want those places to exist. I want historical locations preserved. I want to be able to visit Auschwitz-Birkenau. But I feel like a proper meditation on the events from reading in a classroom or home setting can be just as powerful an experience. Others disagree strongly with this sentiment.

John Michael Greer wrote a great piece on the next ten billion years. It's worth reading, and I won't spoil the story. But when you finish it, you should also definitely read his next post, which points out a great divide between two camps of readers. You may know what side I fell on after having read this blog post.

I really want to recreate the experience I had at the top of that mountain more often. Walking without headphones at 3 a.m. to the local creek is not nearly as provocative, but it is similar enough to make me feel good. Now I just need to look into purchasing a foldable kayak.

16 October, 2018

Night Walks

2 a.m.
The night air relaxes me as I walk through my neighborhood. I always thought of suburban areas like this as still being more city than country, yet I am accompanied on my sidewalk trek by two wild deer, who pause every dozen feet to turn and look at me. Eventually they continue forward while I make a left turn. It's calm. My neighbors are mostly asleep.

Two days ago, we had to switch from using the air conditioner to the heater; I'm not quite comfortable with the change yet. The house smells different when heated. I miss the cold air. I will always prefer cold surroundings, so long as I can warm up in my own way, using electric blankets or exerted energy in a small space. My favorite was when I lived in Colorado: anytime it would snow, my first instinct would be to go outside and sit in the hot tub. Something about having a toasty warm body under the water while snowflakes gathered on my eyelashes and glasses always made me feel comforted.

This is why the walks outside feel so good this late at night. The air is cool. The breeze occasionally makes me shudder. But it is such a positive feeling to get my warmth from exercise while the air cools my body.

I also like the feeling of being alone. Walking without a phone. No podcast on. Just the deer to accompany me. It's peaceful.