The Prison of our Mind
Game of Thrones S5E4:
Stannis: Are you lonely?
Shireen: Just bored.
Stannis: My father used to tell me that being bored indicated a lack of inner resources
The self-isolation of this COVID-19 season is probably more tortuous than the dread of the disease for those of us who have never been compelled to sit still for long periods of time doing nothing.
The less than obvious truth is that people are afraid of being bored. That is why we have social media. That is why we have a feeling akin to subtle panic whenever our phone battery is low. That is why silence bothers us. And we can hardly sit with another person in silence without saying or doing anything. That is why many of us ‘go out’. It is the reason I used to dress up in a shirt and a tie, tell my wife I am off to work, drive out to nowhere in particular and return home at the end of the day. In hindsight, it was an illusion of activity to assuage my inner conflicts of a purposeless existence and a wasting life.
I believe that we are always looking to fill time because we feel time must be filled. When we can’t fill time, it gnaws at our sanity; and to stay sane, we always have to find something to do. It is the philosophy behind prisons and the power it holds over the inmates housed within it. It is what breaks your mind eventually.
We are all in prison — albeit of a different kind. The bars are invisible and our cell is our mind. In recent times, it may be the walls of our homes and the noise of our children and the nagging of our spouses. If you are not going to read anything else today, read this transcript of a 1988 interview of the late Fela Kuti that opened my mind to the power there is in embracing silence and being at peace while doing nothing.
[Reporter to Fela]: You were in prison for quite a while?
Fela: 18 months.
Reporter: Yeah. But that’s quite a while.
Fela: That’s quite a while I tell you.
Reporter: It didn’t change your life?
Fela: Erm … It didn’t change my life but it changed my way of thinking.
Reporter: In what way?
Fela: It dev … oh okay Change is not the word really. It developed my way of thinking. Look er, I am very spiritually inclined and in prison it gave me a lot of time to meditate and think about what this world is really about. Erm … it gives me knowledge about Time. You see, if anybody tells me 20 years is a long time, I will tell him no. Because prison has taught me that time is meaningless unless you want to understand what Time is about. Once you understand what time is about, you have to know that there is time for everything.
Reporter: Okay but there is 24 hours a day and there is 31 or 30 days in a month and there is 365 days in a year. That is a lot of spare time to concentrate on music and when you are in prison you can’t make music.
Fela: I didn’t think about music in prison. Oh maybe a few times some sounds come to my head but I don’t write them down. I just keep them. Maybe humming a few sounds in my head, nice one … sometimes. What I did in prison was not to play games. I try not to talk too much. I try to remain by myself. And … I just try to meditate. That is all I did. You see, prison is supposed to get you bored. so when people go in there they try not to get bored. So I tell myself, okay you wanna get bored … you want to make me bored? Okay, I am gonna get myself bored so that I will not be afraid to go in next time …
Reach into your inner place in this period. There is a lot waiting for you to be discovered.
References:
1. Game of Thrones S5E4 (excerpt): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHCm56L-lTY
Time of dialogue: 0:25–0:33
2. Fela KUTI — Interview 1988 (Reelin’ In The Years Archive): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtiAnjtYdwo
Time of dialogue: 8:28–10:51
