Mental Traps_ The Overthinker's Guide to a Happier Life - Andre Kukla [10]
It scarcely needs to be pointed out that fixation is a waste of time. Indeed, the colloquial name for fixation is “killing time.” This felony is routinely committed when further progress depends on a change of circumstances that we can’t ourselves bring about—when we have to wait for the guests to arrive, the checkout line at the grocery store to move, the traffic to unsnarl, the five o’clock whistle or the three o’clock school bell to signal an end to our incarceration.
In circumstances like these, we stare at clocks, count to ourselves, twiddle our thumbs, gaze about randomly without letting ourselves get interested in what we see, complain about our plight, and spend time wishing that the period of waiting were over. These activities sustain the illusion that we’re still laboring at the stalled enterprise. Our clock-watching is felt magically to keep time moving, and the force of our complaints and wishes seems to push the checkout line along.
Another way to keep busy when there’s nothing to do is by repeating what’s already been done. The host waiting for his guests to arrive will double-check and triple-check his preparations. We’ve already encountered repetition as a form of amplification. The behavior is the same; but it’s even more senseless in the context of fixation. When repetition is amplificatory, we at least expect to obtain a greater degree of certainty that the job has been properly done. But the fixated host entertains no doubts about the adequacy of his preparations. He double-checks and triple-checks simply to kill time.
If the repetitions, the wishings, and the complainings begin to run thin, we may be privileged to observe the last refinement of fixation: the state of suspension. Having exhausted every device for keeping busy when there’s nothing to do, we still don’t tear ourselves away. Instead we sit vacantly, benumbed, in a state of mental paralysis. But this vacancy isn’t simply an absence of thought. Paradoxically, the suspended mind is both empty of content and fully occupied. We feel the strain of mental exertion. We are busy. Yet if asked to describe what we are doing, we have nothing to say.
When we can’t do anything useful to advance our aim, we would do better to forget about it and turn to something else—even if the aim is enormously important and the alternative is just barely worth a glance. Any amount of value is preferable to merely killing time. Until we’re in a position to do something constructive about saving the world from a nuclear holocaust, let’s have a cup of tea. When we’re standing in line, we can observe the other people or enjoy a private fantasy. When we’re stuck in traffic, we can do isometric exercises. Periods of enforced waiting are often precious opportunities to indulge in the little pleasures of life for which we can’t make a special time in our busy day. Here at last is a chance to take a leisurely bath or an aimless stroll, to throw sticks for a dog, to discuss philosophy with a child, to interpret the shapes of clouds. In fixation, we throw away the gift of an empty moment.
The alternatives to killing time are sometimes limited by the circumstances in which we have to wait. We can’t observe the clouds from a windowless waiting room. But one option that’s always open to us is to not do anything at all. This at least conserves our energies for the time when we’re once again called into action. When there’s nothing to do, it’s a waste of electricity to keep the mind running. Here at last is a chance to take a break from the incessant mental chattering—the planning, the scheming, the hypothesizing, the evaluating—that modern life seems to require of us.
Of course, not doing anything has to be distinguished from the contentless mental activity of suspension. The latter exhausts us; the former rejuvenates.