Endings, Beginnings, Seasons, Rest and Resets

A few short reflections at the close of the celestial year

Seasons, cycles, beginnings and endings

Today marks the December solstice, the shortest or longest day of the year depending on your hemispherical perspective. For me, it’s a typical chilly English winter in the south of England - damp, dark and drizzly. Long shadows prevail, yet there are high hopes for the coming summer as our procession around the sun continues, with the Earth’s tilt bestowing us ‘Northern Hemespherites’ with warmer months ahead.

A big thank you

The actual solstice will be Friday, 22 December 2023, at 03:27 GMT. So I’d like to close the celestial year by thanking you, the subscribers of this humble little newsletter for your readership, interest and interactions as I’ve shared my musings on how the principles and practices of mastery can be applied to our most ordinary lives.

I started this newsletter as a container for the things that fascinate me the most and for wrestling with my ideas and motivations for learning and growth in my own life. What surprised me the most as I began writing articles was the friendly interactions and support I received from others along the journey. In several articles, I’ve mentioned that this is a ‘learning in public’ project and have openly sought feedback. I’ve met quite a few people as a direct consequence of writing here and their thoughts, feedback, and moral support have been priceless. This support has encouraged me that the ideas I’m exploring may have wider appeal and the launch of the Ordinary Masterclasses feels like something quite tangible is emerging from this experience that might even take the shape of a personal vocation.

Information fasting

With my enthusiasm for this project running high, I’ve been devouring a lot of information around the subjects of mastery, learning, habit formation, and the various psychological and sociological factors at play in our human experience of growth. I admit this thirst for information, this consumption of knowledge, is something of a compulsion. From dawn to dusk, I find myself on the hunt for more information and input. It feels like I’ve always been like this, and I expect there are many readers of online blogs or similarly lured by the scent of interesting ideas, paradoxes, concepts, and philosophical meanderings.

In the age of abundant information and data, those drawn to seeking out novel ideas can be easily overwhelmed, as well as distracted by the voluminous clickbait that pollutes the information ecosystem. In the interest of self-inquiry, I wonder what is driving that craving. Is it the ego’s need for power? Does it come from insecurity? Is it just a habit, a pattern I follow unthinkingly?

We stuff our minds with trivia just to fill the emptiness we feel… We act as if the human intellect were a runaway monster which must be fed continuously at all costs.

Ram Dass, Journey of Awakening

If it is an addiction, then I guess there are worse things that could be the source of one’s compulsions. Nonetheless, I’d like to ponder the value of having information fasts - time away from books, computers, and any other sources of stimulants for the hungry intellect. Today I’m at the midpoint of my 5-day solstice fast of black coffee and water. I wrote about this in Uber Practice half a year ago. My fasts serve as a total reset, marking the end of one season and the beginning of the next - mental, emotional and physical rejuvenation. This one has the extra challenge of also having Covid, albeit a milder version than when it was most virulent. I wonder whether fasting from information at the same time might heighten the feeling of reset. A cognitive purge and rest.

My only experience of an information fast was on a Vipassana Meditation retreat around 5 years ago. This 10-day silent retreat excluded access to books, phones, computers, or even a pen and notepad. As time passed, and there was nothing to do but meditate, my imagination and creativity ran wild. But without a computer or notepad, there was no way of capturing these ideas. I had to be comfortable with watching them rise and fall and letting them go. I noticed my sensitivities to things were heightened dramatically - awareness of my internal world and the peripheries of the external world became much more intense, to the point of being overwhelming upon emerging into the noise and stimulations of the real world. I wonder, was it the meditation that heightened my senses, or was it the contrast provided by the deprivation of information access?

This week I met with

Brian Leli

who writes in Symbols and Rituals. Brian mentioned passages from the book Non-things: Upheaval in the Modern World in which Byung-Chul Han offers a critique of the infosphere which parallels with my current thoughts on information fasting:

“Lingering is another time-consuming practice. Perception that latches on to information does not have a lasting and slow gaze. Information makes us short-sighted and short of breath. It is not possible to linger on information. Lingering on things in contemplation, intentionless seeing, which would be a formula for happiness, gives way to the hunt for information. Today, we pursue information without gaining knowledge, we take notice of everything without gaining insight, we travel across the world without having an experience, we communicate incessantly without participating in community. We collect vast quantities of data without following up on our recollections. We accumulate ‘friends’ and ‘followers’ without meeting an Other. In this way, information develops a form of life that has no stability or duration”

Byung-Chul Han

Is my pursuit of information too hasty, am I not letting information linger? Am I sometimes a little too goal-oriented, consuming information for the purposes of the latest project without giving it a chance to be consolidated? Perhaps a periodic ‘information fast’ would be useful to linger upon and consolidate previously acquired information. I’d be interested in understanding whether there is any research and the underlying neurology around this idea. We already appreciate the value of sleep in consolidating learning from the previous day, I wonder if extended resets have a similar benefit.

This will be an experiment I look forward to running in the new year to see what comes up. I find that experiments with our environment, routines and practices generate alternative ego states that can surprise us if we spend the time just being aware of them. As I’m writing this I am definitely in a more reflective ego state. My fasting from food produces a very reflective state, my nervous system ‘tingles’ with awareness, more attuned to the environment. Breathing exercises or any kind of self-reflection are heightened in this state.

Is a thirst for information driven by the ego?

While I believe I’m enough as I am, I can’t help but wonder if further self-inquiry will reveal my true insecurities that are driving my inner ‘Info Freako’, the ego’s drive for power, as per the lyrics of the 1989 release by Jesus Jones with that song title:

Info Freako
There is no end to what I want to know

But it means I'll have the edge over you
And it means I'll always have the edge over you
And you know there's nothing that you can do

Info Freako
There is no end to what I want to know

I like to tell myself that my desire to soak up information comes from a noble and universal pursuit of learning and growth. However, as humans, we are experts in self-deception, possessing so many blind spots. It’s always worth digging around for other motivations in the interests of self-inquiry. Personally, I feel that I am strongly driven by a natural curiosity and a genuine interest in personal growth and the growth of those around me, there are likely to be vestiges of insecurities from my younger years that still influence my ego’s desire for the power and status that knowledge brings. I’m not so bothered about ‘winning’ arguments, or ‘being right’, I’m quite comfortable around the nuances of arguments and our general ignorance of the truth, but no doubt my ego still yearns for approval and validation in any judgement of self-worth. Something for me to reflect on.

Since the beginning of the Covid lockdowns in 2020, my real-life encounters have dwindled while my info-seeking exploration of books and internet content has surged. Next year I aim to live less in my head, less around the acquisition of information and knowledge, and more in real-life experience. Besides experimenting with an information fast I’m not sure how that will play out, let’s see what 2024 brings.

Seasons greetings to all, and may 2024 inspire us to indulge the principles and practices of mastery in our ‘ordinary’ lives. I’m no fan of New Year’s resolutions, but it is a great time for personal inquiry, self-reflection, and commitment to pursue what matters most to us.

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Thank you to those who have joined the waitlist for next year’s trial of the Ordinary Masterclasses. There’s a space for one or two more people if you’re interested. See the link below: