Back to the twice daily commute, I’m stuck anew by the fact that I am often the only one in my carriage not glued to a phone. The beach, where I’ve spent my holidays, is a rare place where people, if they are not swimming, strolling, playing cricket or building sandcastles, are reading actual books with actual pages.
Not so on public transport. I’m prepared to concede that not all my fellow travellers are playing Tetris or Angry Birds, posting glossy photos on Instagram or reading scurrilous gossip about celebrities. I understand that folk read books and newspapers on their phones. What’s more, I’m told there are vastly improving things called podcasts. Several of my friends are crazy about these; they recommend them endlessly and try to convince me I am missing out big time.
The thing is though, I don’t want to have any more information flowing into my head, no matter how enlightened and well researched it might be. I have trouble absorbing what is in the paper each morning – any more thought-provoking arguments or stimulating facts and I will lose what little useful data is in my brain already.
All I want to do, when I am on PT or a passenger in a car, is to look out the window and not have to engage with anything more demanding than the buildings or landscape flicking by and the motley crew waiting at each station or tram stop.
Maybe I’m just mentally lazy. But where else in life do we get the chance to relax, to let our thoughts wander aimlessly with no pressure to achieve any kind of outcome, to engage in a bit of old-fashioned day dreaming? After a day of attempting to be sharp and on the ball at work, it is utterly restful to simply gaze idly as the world trundles by.
Restfulness is not the only thing I love about it. After my daily vague out, sometimes solutions to problems present themselves, as if from out of thin air. Ideas pop into my head. I’m compelled to grab a pen and paper and bung down an observation, some words, a few thoughts, an idea for an article.
I suspect that taking time to be vacant is good for all of us in this high-pressure world we inhabit. Put down all material and devices, edifying or otherwise, and just blank out next time you’re on the train. The experience might become almost as addictive as Instagram.
This was published in The Melbourne Age on 28 January