On Stillness
Today was one of the few days that I woke up naturally. Having scheduled my alarm at 11am after coming home late from yesterday’s night out, I was happily surprised by my much-earlier-than-expected 9am wake up. My stuffies sat upright on the extra pillow on the right, undisturbed my movements last night, and gazed at me with their perpetual happiness- their way of wishing me good morning. With the window blinds left open from last night, the morning sun peeked into my room and checked if I was awake. Unable to disappoint the early sun and slumber longer, I let my eyes adjust to the soft light as I groggily rose out of bed- a symptom of last night’s adventures- and automatically retreated to the washroom for my morning hygiene routine. A teeth brush and face wash later, I slapped on a pair of Lululemon shorts and was ready to start my Saturday.
It was any other Saturday. After a week of high stress from work, I wanted to decompress, but had no specific plans to do so. Perfect. No one was waiting on me. No errand was urgent. No plan existed. I could spend my time doing whatever I wanted, however I wanted, and whenever I wanted. I got a rare opportunity to spend time on me- perhaps the best time I would get to spend this week. I squeaked open my water bottle to drown the morning dryness of my throat and sat in my office chair pondering my next activity. Instead of typing away like I usually do on this chair, I spiralled around and looked at the protective surrounding white walls.
The stillness in my room brewed. Living west from the downtown core, there was no honking of traffic jammed cars nor yelling of early morning risers on their morning coffee runs. Only a muted peaceful hum seeped through my window panes. The temperature in my room was pleasant. Being in late September, the unrelenting heat of summer weakened into the cool breeze of fall. The air conditioner sat idle, which further contributed to the silence and the temperature equilibrium. I bent down, turned a switch in my office chair, and leaned back. My head propped on my ergonomic headrest as I transitioned my gaze upwards from the walls to the blank ceiling. As my phone rested silently behind me on my nightstand- perfectly out of sight and out of mind- my arms were diagonal on the arm rests and my hands, so accustomed to carrying, texting, and scrolling through my connection with the rest of the world, idly sat in my lap. I counted to three seconds for a breath in and counted another three seconds for a breathe out, feeling the quickening and slowing heart beats with each breathe in and out. Everything was so still. It was as if time moved on without me- the room cut undeterred and unchanged through the flow and the continuum of time on a big ball of rock, which was full of life and activity, hurtling through the infinities of space.
Under the precious stillness in the early morning, everything was well known and defined. Barring any black swan events such as a blaring fire alarm, I knew the stillness of the passing second would be followed by the stillness of the subsequent second. Life in this moment was predictable and safe against the progress and the pressure of productivity and urgency. I had no pressure of deadlines nor ideas being forced into my mind.
It was wonderful.
Eventually, I rose and decided to walk outside towards a local coffee shop. The sun, which shown through my room only as a teaser, now revealed itself in its partial morning glory, gently obscured by the clouds as if being told to wait for the main event of the afternoon. Despite the moving cars and pedestrians, the wind remained motionless- mother nature’s consideration for my lingering desire for stillness.
As I walked towards a more lively part of the city, I gradually familiarized with the flow of time once again. For each step, I was a little bit older; each passing second was no longer being sought after, but instead being forever unattainable and only morned for if it coincided with something memorable. One of the few times where I did not have my Airpods, I looked around and enjoyed the music of the urban cityscape. I looked at the empty buildings under construction, their large openings for future glass exposed austere steel beams and lifeless emptiness, which juxtaposed the life already present from buildings already built. I looked at the cars driving by, flashing their colours of white, red, and black as they whisked their riders to their forthcoming destinations. I looked at the person walking in front of me- a man dressed in casual athletic wear and held an iced coffee in hand as he sped walk towards his next activity. As the reflection of my future self bounced away in soft running shoes, my actual future self grew closer.
Under the stochastic noise of everyday life, everything is unpredictable. Ironically, it is this noise of everyday life that we find so predictable instead of the stillness of our private living spaces. We find more comfort in the stimulation that noise and unpredictability bring in comparison to the boredom of stillness. Even though many of us may understand the value of pure stillness, we avoid it through the various electronic prisms we cannot seem to live without. We spend little time with just ourselves and grow accustom to the dynamic noise. We go about living our lives shielded by our normative impressions of everyday life, happily ignorant of the hard truth that every passing moment in the continuous flow of time has some probability of ecstasy, trauma, and everything in between.
At last I reached the coffee shop. It was a Vietnamese coffee shop. Outside on the sidewalk, a sign advertised organic beans grown in the fields of Vietnam, which had twice the caffeine content as a regular Arabica coffee bean.
My weekend was just about to officially begin~