A recent opinion piece in the New York Times “The ‘Busy’ Trap” advocates the value of ‘idleness’ – what I would refer to as ‘slowing down to speed up’.
“Idle dreaming is often of the essence of what we do,” wrote Thomas Pynchon in his essay on sloth. Archimedes’ “Eureka” in the bath, Newton’s apple, Jekyll & Hyde and the benzene ring: history is full of stories of inspirations that come in idle moments and dreams. It almost makes you wonder whether loafers, goldbricks and no-accounts aren’t responsible for more of the world’s great ideas, inventions and masterpieces than the hardworking.”
So I was happy to also today come across a mobile app called buddhify which promotes modern meditation and mindfulness that can be practiced ‘on the go’.
In an interview with Protein, buddhify founder Rohan Gunatillake has this to share:
“Our generic relationships to technology are pathological,’ says Rohan. ‘They fragment our attention, distract, and reduce concentration levels. And taking downtime from our devices often isn’t enough. When you turn your phone off, it’s still not really off – there’s a strong likelihood that you have some low-level anxiety in your mind about the amount of emails piling up.’
The solution, he says, is to change our relationship to technology. With buddhify, his aim ‘is to turn our phone into a well-being device’. Through this we can then relate to personal technology in a different, more balanced way.”
I’ve downloaded the app so I’ll let you know how it goes!
