From a Thursday afternoon when the world was too loud…
There’s so much to learn, and my brain wants to learn it all…preferably yesterday. It sprints down a dozen trails at once, collecting ideas like wildflowers, only to drop half of them before I can make a bouquet. A restless stream of consciousness, beautiful but blinding, buzzing with questions, flashes of memory, unfinished thoughts. The world feels too loud, even in silence. Like there’s a constant hum under my skin, a vibrating list of things to discover. My brain is looking for meaning, for truth… for some kind of explanation as to why we’re living in such an absurd world.
I go in and out of good meditation practice. I enjoy trying new methods. On TikTok, I saw a video suggesting that focusing on a white wall could calm the mind. Not a real wall, just an imaginary one. A smooth, blank surface in my mind’s eye. Easy, right? Sit. Breathe. Visualize. So I did what any mildly overachieving meditator would do: I added a twist. In my mental wall, I taped up a crisp white square with a bold black X in the center. “X marks the spot,” I thought. But the moment I settled in, my brain pulled out a folding chair and started asking questions. Why is the wall that particular shade of white? Why is it kind of blurry? Am I supposed to be looking forward when my eyes are closed? Who even paints a wall like this? The stillness was available, sure—but my mind was set on redecorating.
My brain doesn’t like being told where to focus. It wants to chase light beams, rewrite history, analyze the sun’s origin story, and—yes—break into song. Mid-meditation, just as I was trying to gently return to my breath for the twentieth time, a voice in my head started singing: “What the world needs now is love, sweet love…” It was like a surprise musical number at a silent retreat. Completely uninvited, but somehow not out of place. At first, I laughed at the absurdity. But then I realized—maybe it wasn’t so random. I had been feeling sad that day. Heavy-hearted about the state of the world, frustrated with my own busy mind. And here came this old song, soft and corny and weirdly perfect, like a reminder I didn’t know I needed. Maybe meditation isn’t about banishing thoughts, but about paying attention to what floats in when we’re quiet enough to hear it.
That’s the thing about quiet—when we stop trying to force it, our mind starts to speak. Not in perfect clarity or profound revelations, but in fragments. Songs. Images. Gut feelings. It’s like the mind tosses out breadcrumbs, and if we’re listening closely enough, we can follow them somewhere meaningful. Meditation, after all, isn’t about getting rid of thoughts—it’s about noticing what shows up when we stop talking and listen inward. Sometimes it’s anxiety, sometimes it’s a grocery list, and sometimes, strangely, it’s a tender little truth dressed up as a Burt Bacharach lyric.
I didn’t reach enlightenment today. I didn’t dissolve into the universe or silence my thoughts with monk-like precision. But I sat. I listened. I showed up for myself. And somewhere between the mental interior decorating and the surprise serenade, I found a sliver of something true and beautiful. Stillness isn’t always silence. Sometimes it sounds like a forgotten song. Sometimes it starts with an X on a wall and ends with a gentle reminder: we’re not here to perfect the practice—we’re here to practice the presence.
💭 A gentle prompt to take with you:
When was the last time you sat with your thoughts—without judging them, fixing them, or pushing them away?
Today, take five minutes. No goal. Just listen. See what floats in.
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