A long boat ride made me believe in meditation
I recently went to Rome with a university colleague to represent an NGO I volunteer at. While I have much to say about that experience in itself (will post about that another time), due to the environmental context of both the NGO and the conference, we had to take the most environmentally friendly mode of transport whenever we could, which meant that to get from our island to Athens we had to board a ship and, without a cabin, chill for 13 hours.
I initially had grand plans of preparing things to keep myself busy, download movies etc, but due to my shackles of procrastination, I pretty much didn't end up preparing for anything. Two episodes of Interview with the Vampire; the two hours of entertainment that provided went by very quickly.
For the next 11 hours I was either staring at the ground or trying to sleep, which was incredibly unsuccessful. The loud noises, constant creaking and bright lights left me closing my eyes and trying desperately to sleep for ANY amount of time whatsoever. Time couldn't seem to move, which while annoying, was a nostalgic experience. The last time I remember myself sitting still, waiting, and feeling like time was frozen was when little me couldn't wait for the bell to ring for recess.
Of course that was during a different time. A time when elementary school children having a phone was a heavily-judged rarity. When I would read 300 page books in a day, drew and crafted during every waking moment and had never experienced the feeling of looking up from a screen and realizing I've been doing nothing of worth for 3 hours. And even when I'm not on my phone or scrolling an algorithm, I feel innumerable little bits of time missing from my day.
When did 5 minutes pass? I just went to grab my charger in the other room.
I've sat in silence with my eyes closed plenty of times before, namely during nights where I desperately wanted sleep to take me, but that usually lasted 2 hours? 3?
11 hours I spent in that ship lobby with a head too disturbed to think, and while I didn't notice it at first, after returning to shore, something felt different.
I think I got a piece of my pre-fucked self back for a while.
I'd heard of the benefits of acts of meditation before but I'd never been forced to experience a semblance of it. Thanks to this I think I'm going to try looking more into meditative practices, although I'm honestly lost when it comes to looking for this kind of information and where to start when it seems to be a concept largely co-opted by the "New Age" movement and I don't want to touch that with a ten foot pole.
I guess we'll see where this goes, along with all other attempts to un-fuck my life ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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