Letter to my children: On Inspiration, Electronic Distractions, and Boredom

Dearest Beloveds,

Baba used to tell me when he was faced with a particular quagmire at work he would sleep on it. He would deliberately think of the issue before he fell asleep and, “9 times out of 10,” he would awaken with the solution in his mind.

This, my dearest children, is called inspiration. Sometimes it might take longer than a night. Sometimes it might take a few days. But, in my experience, it always happens. The key is giving the issue space.

Whether it be a paper you are trying to write and you can sense the direction but not the details. Whether it be a decision about an uncomfortable relationship. Whether it be whether to stay or take a job. The decisions we make in life that are creative, that teach us, that allow us to express more of ourselfness (boom!) in the world, those come from inspiration. Not from overthinking - but rather feeling into a knowingness in your belly of what direction is best.

Your mother has learned my timetable for inspiration to strike may not align with reality. But the zing will come and, even with a deadline, I have found the zing always comes in time. In other words, savor the anticipation of the answer. Try not to get frustrated with the fact that it hasn’t happened yet. It is exciting to trust the process is unfolding its in own time - like opening a present.

Inspiration arrives to English from Latin - to be filled with the breath of the Divine, of The Good, inspirare.* It is The Good, my beloveds, that calls to us in a wee voice. It is the whisper you hear in the middle of the night, on a long walk in nature, floating on a hammock. It is the reason that spiritual communities take vows of silence, pray, fast, meditate, hold vision quests. It is necessary to be alone with yourself away from the hubbub of the human world to hear that Voice.

The human world has gotten increasingly louder in my lifetime and I can only imagine what will happen in your lifetime. At Baba’s life celebration, his sister shared that when Baba was born, “it was wartime and we stayed home a lot, going out less than is common now.,” If Baba’s early childhood spanned a shift from wartime frugality to diversions outside the home: restaurants, movies, shows, sports doings, etc. I have a hunch your lifetimes could span the shift to diversions inside the home.

Email and cell phones arrived on the scene when your father and mother were in college. Now we have social media and meme wars. Virtual reality headsets are certainly available but not ubiquitous. There is not enough current data to prove causation vs correlation on the exposure of electronics to your growing brains. But given that both of you only have one brain to develop - and your mother is a Luddite in certain respects anyway - we are going to err on the side of restraint.**

Your burgeoning neurological connectivity aside, electronic distractions are addictive. I know this because I am addicted. Before you two loverlies were in our lives and your father was on weekend call, I would barely leave the couch for a weekend of binge streaming. This is why we don’t have cable, but now our computers function as “the boob tube” (as Baba would call the television). I have scrolled through endless video clips to see it is midnight, the dog is chasing squirrels in his sleep, and my dreams are invaded with snippets of what I watched.

It is a constant tug of war between my addiction and the latest technological developments that keep on foisting it on me. For example, in the New York City subway, the poster advertisements are making way for changing screens. Your mother is like a deer in the headlights. I can almost feel myself begin to drool as I gaze.

I am not the only one dealing with this addiction, it is human nature (the term is “screen dependency disorder”), and the exact reason why advertisers are using screens to sell things we don’t need is because the data does show screens are addictive.

When I was in the hospital for the bone marrow transplant. I covered up the television with a beautiful quilt covered in hearts. (Thank you Candy!) Quite a few of the parade of visitors remarked on it. One of the Physician Assistants became almost belligerent. “You covered up your television.”

“Yup.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I don’t like to watch television.”

“Really? Don’t you get bored? You are in this room all by yourself all day.” His tone of voice clearly indicated he thought your mother was nuts.***

In an effort to defuse his discomfort (such Good Girl conditioning) I rejoined, “Well, I actually love television too much. I know I am addicted, so I do that to stop myself.”

Mollified, his tone changed, “Ah, Okay.”

Don’t you get bored? There is the nub. Boredom is precisely when inspiration can strike. Boredom is not something to be chased away with distractions, electronic or otherwise. Boredom is to be encouraged. Boredom gives us the space to create.

Think of yourself as an 18th century writer when you hear that question… No, I am not bored, I am awaiting the Breath of God to fill my pages with deathless prose. A floppy white shirt might help complete the visual.

Paint your life, my loves, on the white canvas of boredom. You never know what The Good might breathe into you at such moments. But I know it will be amazing and I can’t wait to see.

*Middle English enspire, from Old French inspirer, from Latin inspirare ‘breathe or blow into’ from in- ‘into’ + spirare ‘breathe’. The word was originally used of a divine or supernatural being, in the sense ‘impart a truth or idea to someone’. Thank you Google.

**The typewriter arrived this week and both of you are clamoring to write on it. Your mother has to work on my left pinky strength because so far I have been unable to depress the “a” with enough force for it to show up. My fingers have gotten soft.

*** His sense of self was challenged by my rejection of an object and, by extension, a way of life that object represents. Don’t ever underestimate the power of peer pressure my loves. Yet another reason to be still so you can listen to what you know to be right for you.