Night comes in hot. The aircon fan is wracking up a massive storm. I am submerged in the humdrum of a machine. Electric cool air wills my lips dry and peels bloody kisses off the scraps of my lips picked clean—RnB on. I am concentrating. Distilling, some essence of myself into a fine solution. This is the longest road I’ve ever taken. There is no end but I am still into it; whittling myself down to a single sharp peak—swinging pendulum. I am one step forward, one step back. Rumination is the secret to insight. We do it even when we don’t want to.
“It’s physiological.”
The answer, too simple, silences the rush of my synapses—loud in the hope of validation; they raced as if to say I can’t help it, I swear I’ve tried.
Watkins says rumination is a response to failure to progress satisfactorily towards a goal.1
If this is so, we must ruminate quite often, over many of our intangible failures. It seems that, despite being a means to an end, rumination grows into an endless cycle. What started as a fleeting thought, I have now bitten onto and refuse to let go; Attempting to analyze blindly—Why? becomes my favourite litany.
Churning is the song ruminant minds secrete. When I ruminate, I am reduced to a roaming creature. With a mouth full of tough thoughts, my mind exacting heavy bovine force, breaking notions into bits, grounded by the steady edge of my quiet breathing. There is no exact end, only that with every rise and fall of my chest, I soften from inside out.
When you dedicate moments to ruminate, your thoughts seem to seep through from within. They get all over your face, redness grows from under your skin. Not always a mark of something malignant, but an indication something needs to come out. To ruminate is to beckon at secrets, from deep within yourself. Often, it seems to be just shame, previously undisclosed. Other times it is first fear and then a lesson, that says:
I did it once, and that’s enough. Never again.
And when the secret bleeds out, rumination will often end. There is no to keep eating if the snake is already full enough on its tail.
Sometimes it just takes a while to digest yourself.
-swan
If you’ve made it this far, thank you for reading <3
This is the pondering corner where I leave you something to think about; feel free to let me know your thoughts below. x
Pondering about: Quiet Enemies of Connection
Brene Brown states in her book, Atlas of the Heart, that while the far enemy of connection is disconnection, the near enemy of connection is… control. What is a near enemy? According to Buddhist psychology2, a near enemy is an emotion or trait masquerading as a virtue.
the near enemy of hope is blind optimism
the near enemy of kindness is selflessness
the near enemy of discipline is rigidity
Watkins ER (March 2008). "Constructive and unconstructive repetitive thought". Psychological Bulletin. 134 (2): 163–206. doi:10.1037/0033-2909.134.2.163. PMC 2672052. PMID 18298268.
I haven’t read enough to validate if this is actually based on Buddhist psychology or not. Brene Brown is an American professor from Texas so I am sceptical but I will look into it.
I love so much about this. “It may take a while to digest yourself” is going to live rent free in my brain for the foreseeable future
this is incredible writing!