The Sun was shining. I was on a beautiful beach in Las Palmas, staring at my phone. My kids had gone ahead to play in the surf. They'd run and shout and be exactly as adorable as kids on a beach can be. I was looking at my phone. I felt anxious about the news from the US. I didn't smile or enjoy the weather. I was refreshing Twitter on the damn phone.
After some minutes the ridiculousness of the situation forced me finally leave the phone behind and join my family playing in the sea. My brain started to do all the important things a relaxed brain should be doing. About half an hour later, when I was sitting in the sand and watching the kids play, I realized I had a new demon in my head.
I don't use the term demon here in any religious sense. Rather, they are insistent thoughts (or thought patterns) that keep looping in my mind, eat up all my energy, and tie my stomach into one large knot. I'll explain the naming later, but I'll have to detour to personal history first.
As a younger man I worried a lot. There was a particularly bad period when everything was difficult. I felt insecure about my skills, about my career, about the possibility of things ever getting better. Once situation improved a little, I had some more energy to reflect on my situation. I started taking notes of what happened when I felt a pang of anxiety hit me. I can't remember where I learned that; either read it somewhere or someone told me. Anyway, it worked wonders.
What I found where these tiniest of thoughts. For example, "What if I don't have the skill X necessary in life" or "All my old pals seem to do better at work than I do". From those germs exploded a cascade of self-accusations, a whirlpool of fears, an avalanche of guilt. It felt like a tormenting spirit or demon whispering in my ear, trying to break my will.
Once I'd learned to recognize those common thoughts and written them down, I noticed that most of them were pretty silly. For example, why should I worry if a person I met once is now a "Country Manager for Nokia"? Would I even want to be one? If not, why worry? I wrote these rebuttals down as well... at which point the demons seemed to lose their power. I could still hear the whispers, but they didn't affect me anymore.
I'll repeat that. After I could hear what the demon was actually saying, banishing it required only a minuscule amount of work. A sentence or two seemed to do the trick. I believe writing both the whisper and the response down on paper is important. The demon only lives in your mind. Against paper or pen or computer it is powerless.
In the end, I found five demons. Two of them I mentioned above. The rest are about never finding my dream-job / calling, thinking every article in the world somehow talks about me and being dissatisfied with my wife. I expect other people to have other demons. Very personal things, these demons.
I think calling them demons also helps to distance the worries from 'the true me'. They become something external and easier to ignore and dismiss. A trick, yes, but if it works...
So back to the beach. I found a sixth demon!
In a properly relaxed state, I realized I kept checking my phone because [in demon voice] "what if something baaaad happened and you didn't know about it immediately". Well, Mr. Demon, do I look like a fireman? What possible benefit is there for me knowing the news now instead of waiting until the evening? I'm not in the frontlines for this particular war; and even in the (real) trenches, there are shifts.
Boom! All that happened in a few seconds. The knot in my stomach melted away. I felt no need to check the phone. I felt calm and happy, sitting there watching the two monkeys throw sand at each other.
Now reader, I don't want you to have have the impression that I wouldn't care about the events in the US anymore. I do and they concern me a lot. But! The events themselves weren't the cause of anxiety; the anxiety was coming from my 'need' to be up-to-date 24/7. Now I don't have to waste energy on that and I can think more strategically. Specifically, I can work to improve the civic society in my own country; smalltalk with people, go to a demonstration, support libraries & charities and so on.
The bit about demons ends here, although there's a curious related incident.
Some months after I had compartmentalized the demons out of my 'daily mind', I was sitting on my sofa while everyone else was asleep. I'd been doing some handy work and helping a friend organize their wedding. I had read an article about a professor leaving their job, and wrote some notes about it.
I managed to write the first line: "The system is rotten. Tao lives in the work of your own hands, done for your own benefit."
Once I'd done that, I had an experience that the Japanese apparently call satori: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satori
I don't really have any good words for it. All I know that the descriptions of other people who claim to have experienced satori ring very true to me. Everything seemed clear and I felt like I had all the answers in the world.
During that short moment of clearness I wrote down some other notes:
- "You know many things and keep learning new things. You just don't always notice it."
- "When someone claims 'This is important!' it rarely is"
- "You have an enormous imagination. Stories, plays, images. It's a real treasure."
- "In a strange company or when dealing with 'adults' you fear laughter and mockery. It is unnecessary."
Those thoughts seemed to carry with them nearly infinite compassion. Someone else might use the term God here. Since I don't believe in the existence of supernatural entities, I figured it was another part of my brain speaking. Unlike the demons, this one doesn't talk often. He totally should, though. I named that part "The Sensei", probably because of the Japanese connection.
So far meeting the Sensei has been a unique experience.