2nd journal entry

Maybe Thoreau went to the village so often because he got bored, out there alone in the woods.

I didn’t go on the Internet for two hours today. I didn’t check my phone, I didn’t listen to music. I didn’t use my electric blanket, even though I was lying in bed and it was cold. I did check the clock, though – a lot. I’m a chronic clock-watcher. I need to know how much time is left in a class, in a lesson. In my allotted period of meditation. I’m also a chronic music-listener. I love my iPod so much, I wrote a poem about it for a class. So much, that even when I dream, I hear songs I know. It’s seriously like I’m listening to an actual track, like the track is playing in my head. Once, I dreamed that a stereo was in a corner of the room, playing a song.

I bring up dreams because I actually did the meditation thing twice today. I woke up early this morning, and I thought – Maybe I’ll just get this meditation thing out of the way now. And I kind of did; I kind of fell back asleep, had dreams. And I also had this thought: What does doing nothing mean? Even when I was lying there in bed, half-asleep, I was doing something. I was lying there in bed. But the exercise was more to get away from electronics and everything else, so I guess I succeeded.

I guess. I laid there and thought about everything I had to do, but I didn’t do it. A couple times I wanted to get up, but I didn’t let myself. To be honest, I do a lot of nothing. Daydreaming is one of my favorite activities. And I have gone a week or so without checking my e-mail, my phone. But that’s over breaks, when I don’t have as much to do. Also, I’ve never sworn off TV or my iPod. And I’ve never been alone when I’ve vowed not to check my messages. I’ve always had someone to talk to. Maybe I just wanted meditation to be hard, because everyone thought it would be. When I first heard we should do it, I thought it would be hard; I have a lot of stuff to get done, most of the time. But then I started to get excited – you know, two whole hours to lay there and think about whatever I wanted.

And then when my two hours were up, I put on the radio. And I heard a song I didn’t like that much. A couple songs I didn’t like that much. But I didn’t turn it off, and I didn’t get up right away. Why? Suddenly, I wasn’t in nearly as much of a hurry to get stuff done, now that I knew I had to. That always happens to me. That, and I was tired. I did almost fall asleep a couple times.