The Call to Solitude

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I’ve been noticing a distinct decreasing interest in things I have normally enjoyed.

I am sensing it is both temporary and permanent, despite the dichotomy.

This picture was taken late into the night, just a few hours before I went to sleep. It’s rare that I am off the computer for that long before bed.

This ‘feeling’ feels temporary because these are things I -do- enjoy, but my intuition is focusing my attention on something else, for but a moment, to create momentum in other important areas.

Particularly with self-reflection and time alone.

It’s possible I will ‘go back’ to those things after I address certain areas. Most change is not always permanent and the “next step” can always evolve into something new and unexpected.

It’s not always black-and-white and the beauty lives in the grey. Unexpected, new, or creative solutions and avenues that resonate more deeply than the ‘black and white’ expectations anticipated.

Permanent because it’s hard to think I will go back to the ‘way things were’ once I become aware of this shifting interest – increasing intuitive nudges to do other specific things.

Most likely to go about them in different ways or prioritize time differently.

The hope is that this post, thinking on and writing about it, creates a renewed intention to embrace this gradual shift:

A stronger pull towards going inwards, to spend a greater amount of time with my own thoughts, especially now that I have been living alone for almost a full month.

Without sharing the same space with someone else, this time has created a literal space where I can be more introspective, don’t have to second guess what I’m doing, and can take full responsibility for literally everything in the space – and how I’m spending my time in it.

Now past the novelty of living completely alone, some days feel like a blur because of different avoidance tendencies – reliving the same neglect of my heart from one day to the next.

As frustrating as they are, they give a “+1” nudge to make a change until that number becomes so great that I hit a breaking point and snap.

Those ‘breaking points’ are starting to happen more frequently and closer-and-closer to each-other.

A good thing.

It’s creating gradual, incremental change.

More self-awareness, more taking responsibility, more being honest with myself, more direct communication.

Hence the ‘change’ of feeling less of a pull towards the same things I found enjoyment in.

A pull towards more time alone.

More time away from …

• the computer
• internet
• podcasts
• people
• other ‘ideas’ that distract me or that I’m not living out

There are not a lot of periods of time in my life where I wasn’t sitting in front of a computer (for work or leisure), where I wasn’t consuming something for entertainment, personal development, or work.

Which means that a lot of my time has not been spent letting my mind, consciously and subconsciously, ‘wrestle with’ the ideas I’ve been taking in for days, weeks, or months at a time.

Taking things in but not processing them against my own conscious.

Hearing great ideas but never putting them into practice.

It’s a constant regurgitation of the same/new information, or “big aspirations.”

… but rarely dedicating time to

a) process my own, unfiltered thoughts around it,

or

b) bringing those ideas to reality.

This decrease of interest in ‘normal’ things is really just a stronger interest growing, begging for more attention to be alone – not psuedo-alone.

That time alone to

• be with my own thoughts,
• actually think through things in my own voice and not the voice/idea of a podcast, or
• work through projects and let my subconscious chew on other current challenges (without distracting it with new information from podcasts).

That doesn’t mean that I rule those things out completely.

Just making the time a bigger priority to NOT ALWAYS use those resources and to instead consult the self. To spend time on the project.

A few things that have been helping with, or that I’m experimenting with lately, to cultivate this alone time, inner consultation, and self-awareness:

• tools to remove incentive for compulsive social media checking (no facebook feed, no ‘notifications’ for likes, seeing ZERO metric-data (likes, hearts, etc), reducing the number of people I’m following by 90%+ [again], no ‘recommended videos’ nor comments on Youtube)

• more time on the couch, porch, floor to be with my thoughts, journal, listen to music, or otherwise just “be.”

• putting away the TV and replacing it with a cozy nook to journal, read, meditate, and reflect.

• less gaming, netflixing, youtubing as a tool to “avoid work.”

My physical space is CONSTANTLY evolving; always optimizing for what feels right and what I am currently working towards. (Ask anyone who has come over in the past year, especially my roommate. 😂 )

This whole ‘thing’ has just been a step in putting more awareness on the need to devote time for being with the self and to be connected with one’s own thoughts.

I think we all have immense resources and wisdom within about our own situation in life, what we need in a particular moment — those little “nudges” that say, “… I don’t REALLY want to play a game and have ‘fun’ right now. I want to process this heavy feeling. I want to work on this project. I want to sort my shit out.”

Those are the moments for me when I am on the fence – where one side creates the same day as yesterday and the other is a minuscule “pattern interrupt” for today but changes the trajectory of the rest of life in the long-game.

I need to constantly push myself to LIVE that out for myself, not just say it, otherwise I don’t ‘actually’ believe it.

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