I propose a new kind of vacation which is not really new. Honest adventurers often do it, but for most of us simple City folk the idea itself is hard to construe, especially if we are left to our own devices.
No media. No mass means of communication, pop-culture and broadcast entertainment. This translates into no newspapers, no TV, no movies, no tabloids, no radio, no music (unless, we perform it ourselves), and even no trivial pursuit, especially no trivial pursuit.
One might go as far as excluding books, but personally that is my one own exception.
The exclusion of other's (popular) words, images, voices, sounds and perspectives on mostly frivolous mater forces us to focus on our own words, images, voices, sounds and perspectives. I suppose this seemingly reclusive concentration could easily drive some people batty, bonkers, nuts and insane if they are not vain enough to be amused by themselves. I'm inclined to believe it all-too probable since in so many ways I've heard and witnessed people say, "I'm bored, what do I do with myself?"
Well, one might begin by getting out of the house, out of the hotel room, out of the room and just take a walk (outside). Destination unknown, a walk to nowhere if you will, random baby steps, but just taken a little slower than usual.
Of course, there are a million (literally) other activities one might pursue depending on where she is, the possibilities of which expontentiate (increase exponentially) should she employ her imagination.
The purpose is to become more conscious of the self and the animated world around us, a world teeming with life should we only stoop, look up, or slow down to witness it all in action. One might end up being surprised as to how entertaining, intelligent, amusing and enlightening we and life naturally have the potential to be.
At the same time, one might find that this rigorous attention to a simplified self is challenging. For how often do we depend solely on ourselves to extract us from this purported living hell of inertia, the apathy, the depression, the boredom, the quiescence of human being that we have learned to fall into and back upon should we stop consuming all the schlock of others?
The irony is that the lull does not have to become dull. Idleness is just another opportunity for exercising both our mind and body, exercise that embodies challenge, if it is to prove beneficial.
Ultimately, one might discover upon her return, that she was lost in time, as it was once defined by the events of others, having consciously cut herself off from the outside world (so to speak). The trite phrasing of which conveys the common feeling that the act of self-imposed exile or solitary confinement might be readily deemed a crime, a faux pas, since it so blatantly ignores the rest of society.
In contrast, in the process she may actually regain a portion of the time she should be allocating and creating on her own accord in the first place, with her own words, in her own time, with her own experience, a life which untainted by others, she can claim truly to be her own.
"Only a creative person knows how to drop the boredom, the creative person knows no boredom at all. He is thrilled, enchanted, he is constantly in a state of adventure."
~ Creativity, Unleashing The Forces Within, osho
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