Don’t we just love Monday mornings, with its long list of overdue tasks to complete. Even better when there is no wifi, as happened to me today. Everything I planned to do, including writing this blog, depended on wifi.
So how could I use this extra time? By doing something really difficult, by thinking, and trying to work out why I felt so antsy. My thoughts drifted back to my book Push At Open Doors, and then I knew the cause of my discomfort.
If there is one thing that most people dread more than almost anything else it is the thought of being alone.
‘Silence is always beautiful, and a silent person is always more beautiful than one who talks’. Fyodor Dostoevsky (from The Adolescent).
There is another reason why we like to keep busy. In quiet times we are unable to fill our heads with the trivia of daily life. After years of social conditioning many people feel guilty when they are not busy, while others fear the thoughts that might fill their empty gap.
Colourful French actress and prolific novelist Colette wrote,
‘There are days when solitude is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall.’
Fortunately I didn’t need to resort to any head banging. The wifi is back, and all is well with the world again. Now I can fill my mind with trivia and stop thinking.
