Today, I just got so tired of hearing my internal monologue. I mean, I really don’t have anything new to say to myself. It’s all just mumbo jumbo, recycled old material. I can’t even make myself laugh anymore. Making shadow puppets of two dogs growling at each other used to send me into hysterical laughter. But now, nothing.
I think it’s common to get bored of our internal monologue. About half of the cyclists I’ve seen are wearing earphones when I meet up with them. It’s much more difficult than most people think to be alone with your own thoughts and no distractions for 10-12 hours per day.
Even in Bill Bryson’s book, A Walk in the Woods, (now a movie with Robert Redford), in which he walked part of the Appalachian Trail, Bill said he was tired of listening to his own voice in his head.
In our current society, we are bombarded by things that command our attention – media, advertising, other people. But when we are alone and there’s nothing competing for our thoughts, what do we think about?
It was a question asked of me by the reporter in Brandon. In my experience, I would say we think about all kinds of things, past, present, and future. My mind also seems to entertain itself by creating dialogue scenarios with other people. For example, in my mind, I often have conversations with people I’ve never met; they could be real or fictional. Some are nice conversations and some are not. When you let your mind go, it will entertain itself.
My thoughts are sometimes positive and inspirational, and sometimes they are negative. When you let your mind go, you never know what turns up. I can say for a certainty that the mind is busy, busy, busy. This is why I can get tired of listening to myself. I think this is why meditation is so important; it can help quiet the mind. In my tent at night, I’ve been trying to meditate for a few minutes, only to quiet my mind.
And it’s not easy to meditate while I’m walking, so sometimes I’ll take charge of my mind and force it to think of specific things, such as the lyrics of some of my favourite oldies. It helps ease my brain fatigue when I can focus on something specific for a while. Too much free reign causes mental fatigue, but so does too much mental focus. I seem to need a balance.
The best times are when I completely zone out. I can sense the traffic and other things around me, but I’m lost on some different level of brain wave. Sometimes I can do this for a couple of hours at a time. It’s very cool.
But every once in a while, when there are no cars within eyesight on the highway, I pause, raise both of my hands forward, palms outward, and scream ‘STOP’ as loud as I can. It works. I feel better afterward. And long after I finished this walk, a psychologist friend told me that this is a great way to reset the brain.
