Our theme for the month of June is “confessions.”
What do you do when you’re by yourself?
In my quality down time, I’m often listening to something—most typically an audiobook. Audiobooks, be they Anna Karenina or The Stormlight Archives, are fantastic companions. An annoying task I’ve been avoiding becomes a pleasant pastime, and cooking dinner after work becomes a fun decompressor instead of a relentless chore.
On the other hand, I’m rarely alone with my thoughts.
I recently took a weekend solo hiking in the north of Wales. I wanted it to be a sort of retreat, to disconnect from work (which I haven’t been able to stop thinking about lately), to get off my phone (which I fear I’m addicted to), and to sit in some silence—or at least, to not constantly listen to something. I wanted to give myself a bit of room to breathe, to reconnect with myself beyond ‘autopilot’.
The particular challenge I set was to hike Yr Wyddfa (or Mount Snowdon), the tallest peak in the U.K., without listening to anything. The route I chose (up Pyg, down Miners!) is medium-strenuous and twelve kilometers, for which guides instruct to leave five to six hours.
A perfect amount of quiet time, for reconnection and reflection…
Except that my thoughts were absolute nonsense.
They were, generously, something along the lines of:
Time to pass this person.
Oh look, a zyn pouch on the trail.
Thank God I have proper shoes on and not those Nike sneakers.
Time to speed up.
What is proper passing etiquette?
I wish I were one of these sheep… I’d never have to send emails.
Is this a glacial landscape?
Okay quick quick time to pass these people
I should’ve paid more attention in geology class.
Wait
Is this the trail?
…
And so on, for five hours.
My brain felt like a radio tuning between a frenzied assortment of stations: from random observations, to songs or sound bites, to some sort of internal operating system.
At times, I tried to force my brain to focus on a single topic. I filtered through my thoughts, grasping for something to chew on. How’s… my relationship? How do I envision my future? But in the course of putting one foot in front of the other, each larger idea slipped away. The radio came back on.
I couldn’t manufacture some epiphany on this mountain, even if it was my romantic notion going in. My ultimate intention for my hours of silence was not profound reflection, but presence. The tumult in my head was my reality to be present in just as much as the trail was.
The hike was fantastic. The weather was absolutely awful, with gusts of freezing wind, non-stop rain, and low visibility, but the landscape was perhaps even more beautiful for its moodiness, and my own company was light and pleasant. At the end of the trail, I was left with an endorphin high and a content fatigue.
Still, over the next few days, I wondered if I’d let myself down. I’d finally created some mental space, and the result seemed completely lacking in depth. It’s a real loss to think that one must be productive in order to be of value, and I hate to capitulate to this idea within my own mind. Beyond that, though, was there some reason that my thoughts were so disparate? Have I always been this way?
If I’m honest, I think it’s rather a case of neglect of certain mental muscles. I don’t feel guilty for my frame of mind on Yr Wyddfa—I had a fantastic time—but it was a striking reveal that I’ve largely eliminated passive reflection in my day-to-day life. Genuinely: if I am not working, then I’m with friends; if I’m alone, then I’m consuming some media, or focused completely on a challenging task, or running late to an event and consumed with stress over my lateness. I do try to build in moments for reflection, such as this one, but they are rare and dedicated spaces.
What do I do with this realization? I already feel overrun by life admin and projects.
I suppose the point may be that I rather need to not do. At least sometimes.
I don’t intend to give up my audiobooks completely… but I do want to create more passive space for my own thoughts, even if they’re jumbled for a while.
Rylan Shewmaker (‘21) calls herself a geographer, though none of her degrees substantiate this. After growing up in Texas and studying in Grand Rapids, she moved to Brussels, Belgium, for her master’s degree in urban studies. She still lives in Brussels and works for a housing non-profit. She enjoys audiobooks, bike commuting, sunny days, and learning new things.
