Getting on the London Underground has immediately brought me back to the charms of daily work commute. The ambiguity of it all, the thought-cancelling noise, squeaking and screeching of the old rails. But then the thought-provoking diversity and the endless possibilities of observing other humans and their gestures, their appearances. The offline underground time where I could just do nothing and think, read, crochet or knit. Maybe a moment to take in the daily portion of events, emotions and thoughts. A necessary pause, trapped momentarily among millions of others. The detail of planning a journey that has the most comfortable changes, least walking, best chances of getting a seat in a morning or afternoon rush hour. Yes, I was there. For seven years going right in the throbbing heart of London in the morning peak time and going back every day with thousands of Londoners.
I’m absolutely amazed how this experience seems to be engraved in my soul. Could it really be that after almost 9 years of not doing it, I feel like no time has passed at all within minutes of sitting on a London tube…? Apparently so!
Funny how that coincides with my current read: „Solitude” by Michael Harris. A book which I fished out almost unintentionally at a charity shop in Balham on my last trip to London in January. A compelling study of how daydreaming and uninterrupted time, away from being engaged in any sort of activity is a crucial part of our mental wellbeing. Today’s custom of being constantly online and oversharing not only puts us in a permanent state of engagement and seeking approval of others, it also almost completely removes the pleasure of being solo, the profound advantaged of solitude. The way we digest social media has to be questioned and a digital diet that the book is tactfully advocating, is long overdue.
All of this – again – seems to have appeared in front of me at a moment where my engagement in online presence (as a business mainly) has reached a wall of solid exhaustion. It feels almost hopeless – as my heart screams for being offline and supporting others in pursuit of their digital detox – and the only way I can reach people that are in need of such is – ironically – via social media. It is a real struggle, a solution to which is yet to be apparent for me, but hey, I came all the way to London to buy a book about it and now again to read and digest that book so – who knows, maybe my „aha” moment is just round a corner. Or maybe it will unveil itself on an idle autumn afternoon in our hammock, after busy summer of hosting many wonderful people. Time will show.
