Addicted to activity and the impossibility to relax

It happens to everybody: we are more or less addicted to activity. To processing information and impressions. To judging, interpreting and reacting. To picking up and releasing the feelings of tension that seem to accompany it. There is almost no moment imaginable where there are no stimulating impressions, or that no output or reaction is wanted from you. And should there be such a moment, or should there be only little input, then you are likely to actively start looking for them, be it by turning on the radio or tv, or call someone on the phone or whatever.

Learning and controlling has a routine that is much the same: when you have mastered something, there is mental space available that you no longer have to use to actively focus on the learning process. Now are you going to use that to experience some rest or inner peace? No, it is likely that you will start looking for new input, challenges and information: more, bigger, stronger, more complicated. The difference with an absence of activity thus increases and becomes even harder to bridge. This kind of development is called "personal growth", although "personality growth" would be a more appropriate expression.

Popular input for activities can be easily found nowadays through tv or computer. Sitting behind your computer is a good one: you can sit there for hours, which is great for your personality because this definitely is a purely mental activity: focusing your attention and meanwhile explore, check, install, process, make virtual contacts, name it and you can do it. And you succeed every time in overcoming problems, so you are "good". Watching tv is a bit alike, although there the active part is absent (except when you are in charge of the remote). But you have an input that you have chosen yourself, and your mind can entertain the input in various ways: you can agree or not, are being entertained, are passionate about a play or movie etc.

When an outsider looks at someone who performs these activities, he sees nothing more than a person who closes his mind to the outside world, does not want to be interrupted in his experience, and stares at a screen, and sometimes does some little movements with his hand. And still: these two boxes with a screen usurp most of the time of many people these days, besides sleeping. It does have its advantages for your personality: you are much more in control of your experiences and input, boring and unpleasant input can be skipped with a single touch on a button. Experiences are not as intense as they are in a personal contact. You are not disturbed too much by other people when you do this. A computer makes you "objectively good". Etc.

A good third one is the way you deal with music: all day long there has to be a choice of "good music" to finish off your experiences with a touch of pleasantness, and especially avoid experiencing silence. By using a headphone you may even exclude all kinds of unwanted or unpleasant input from your surroundings, and you have given the obvious signal: do not disturb.

The same mechanism works in all kinds of other daily activities, like your work. You are so usurped in the moment, that you do not want to be interrupted, you want to play the game as good as you can, notice all the input and do not miss out on anything. Even in your spare time this is likely to go on: whatever you do you want to do right. Whenever it is possible you will avoid quiet time, even your free time has to be filled with input and impressions.

Calling forth and processing input is a pure personality activity. He does not want a situation where there is no stimulation, even though he may sigh every now and then that he would like to have some quiet time. But he finds it much too interesting: being busy, coordinating, organizing, talking, forming an opinion etc. Try planning a day, or even an hour, without all this. Go and sit in the fields without any input whatsoever (do not walk). Chances are that within five minutes you are all fed up with this, and you want to jump up and start doing this or that, or write down this valuable idea, or .... and the thoughts already race through your head, looking for things that will make you move again, be it maybe after having spent this hour sitting still like a good guy/girl. This is more likely to feel like a silence between two storms, rather than real relaxing, this is more a temporarily absence of your normal activity, which means that it is still the focus of your personality.

Activity is the perfect way for your personality to uphold its worldview. the absence of activity is not being isolated and sitting by yourself on a mountain top without any input. Absence of activity is perceiving the input without having it mean anything to you, or calling forth anything. It does not matter whether there is music or not. It does not matter whether you are sitting behind your computer or not. It does not matter whether ... whatever. Your ways are no longer activity-driven.

Now this does not mean that you have to stop with any activities, but rather that you become aware of the way that your personality uses them to strengthen his worldview. Thus you decrease the power of this principle at a pace that suits you. True relaxation is a state of Being, and that can only be experienced in the absence of your personality response with regard to activity, when it becomes more quiet in your head, and your attention is no longer frantically focused outward. Learn to become more and more comfortable with that feeling, and remember how much more you want this than the feelings of your personality. Thus it will become more than simply sitting through a gentle silence of your personality.