What To Think

"What do you think about when you don't have to think about thinking?"

One of my professors asked this question in a class I took about pop culture. It was as much about how we interact with our culture as it was about popular culture itself. While I still consume a lot of media, I think that I consume less than a lot of people. Because of what he said, I also see how it often bleeds into my subconscious. Whether it be in my dreams or my daydreams or just a song stuck in my head.

We all have a passivity about us. More often than we would like to admit, we let life walk on us. We come home from our work and set ourselves in front of anything that will entertain us. And now, it is almost non-stop. Every moment of our lives it seems is filled with a song, or a video or a newsfeed.

We have grown unaccustomed to silence. In a way, it has made us more anxious. There is rarely a silent moment in our lives and the mind, as a little brother, mimics the noise. It never turns off. We lie awake in bed with a stream of noises and images, things we watched and listened to mixed in with the general lack of processing about the day we had.

The saints of the Orthodox Church called this state "logismoi." It is a word meaning something similar to assaultive or intrusive thoughts. This past confession, I admitted to my priest that I took little pleasure in structured prayer and found it difficult to keep a prayer rule. There was a small set of prayers he recommended as a starting point that has proven helpful. But he also told me to cultivate a space for silence.

What do I want to think about when I have to think about thinking? I would not say nothing. Nothing means not existing. When I don't have to think, I want to be still, I want to be silent.