Anxiety & Numbness

The Middle Way

So many people are suffering from anxiety, and others are suffering from feeling lethargic. And when the anxious people come down, when they’re no longer clinging to the ceiling fan or sweating through sleepless nights, then they seem to have lost their motivation.

It’s sad to see so many people who seem to have lost their way. We all suffer from anxiety from time to time, and when dullness comes, we try to find a way to balance ourselves out, to regroup our energy and find what lights us up again.

What happens when ambition is gone, motivation is a played word, discipline is over, and we don’t rely on boredom anymore? Boredom is another word I can’t seem to use because people don’t understand it. I love the word, it’s just misunderstood.

Boredom used to mean that you were finished with the last task, there wasn’t a heavy sense of urgency for the next task, whether it’s free time or you’re at work, and there was a period where you overcame inertia.

---

The problem

Boredom

Boredom helps us over our inertia, because it gives us a chance to sit there for long enough to realize that we don’t want to be doing that anymore. Then we get down to the task. Maybe it’s our phones, or maybe it’s the culture, or maybe we’re just pressured too much to be productive all the time and we’ve forgotten what boredom actually is.

Boredom isn’t a problem, it’s a solution. Boredom is the lack of inertia, the feeling that you don’t want to do that thing right now, and in fact, you don’t want to do anything. Boredom means that you can’t decide what you want. It’s a period of waiting. It’s not laziness, it’s Purgatory.

Be aware of your laziness. Not to conquer it, not to suppress it, but just to observe it in silence. That observation is the flame of intelligence.

- J. Krishnamurti (JK)

Boredom isn’t bad, boredom is good, because it shows you what you like. It’s the portal for curiosity. Boredom allows the inertia from the last thing to evaporate. Yet boredom also means that you’ve lost so much interest that it’s over. It’s just completely over, and there’s absolutely no point.

Anxiety

On the other hand, anxiety is the feeling that you’re over it, but you need to come down, to calm down, and to stop worrying about what will happen if don’t keep working. Anxiety and boredom are two sides of the same coin. I’ve written quite a bit on anxiety, so I won’t go into it too much here.

On the upper end, we have anxiety, and on the bottom end there is laziness. Here’s a list of words, two lists, in fact. These words attempt to group the upside (bad) and the low side (also bad) of not wanting to do anything:

1. Anxiety

2. Restlessness

3. Fidgety

4. On edge

5. Stir-crazy

6. Driven

7. Itchy-feet

8. Wired

9. Overstimulated

10. Unease

Those are the upper end of the spectrum words, the feelings that we associate with overwork, and spending too much time trying to be productive.

The moment you make an effort to get rid of laziness, you are in conflict. That conflict is itself a form of laziness.

- JK

On the other hand, the lower end, the other side of the coin, we have these lovely words:

1. Boredom

2. Laziness

3. Procrastination

4. Burnout

5. Demotivation

6. Low-energy

7. Unproductive

8. Monotony

9. Flatness

10. Numbness

Neither of these lists are good, so please don’t pick a word to be proud of. Don’t even pick a word to identify with more than the others, because all humans experience these two feelings at one point.

The five hindrances

In Buddhism, boredom, or dullness is a condition that was identified and has a solution. The condition is called sloth and torpor. That is (they are) one of the five hinderances. They’re so bad, and so intertwined that they’re lumped together. They were combined about 2,000 years ago, so whatever it is you’re going through, you’re not the first.

For some clarity, and a bit of history, here’s the list of hinderances. We’re focusing on just two today.

1. Sensual Desire (kāmacchanda)

2. Ill Will (vyāpāda)

3. Sloth and Torpor (thīna-middha)

4. Restlessness and Worry (uddhacca-kukkucca)

5. Doubt (vicikicchā)

As you can see, anxiety is number 4 above. Anxiety and worry are concerns about time and either what happened, or what might happen. Presence isn’t concern about time, it’s reality in time. Anxiety is you projecting yourself into some imaginary future, and worry is being stuck in the past.

---

The solution

Restlessness

Pay attention. According to the Buddha, when you’re experiencing excess anxiety, that’s the restless mind. This can occur if you’re sitting at your desk working, or it can be sitting in meditation and the body won’t stop bothering you.

It’s that itch on your knee, it’s that tiny muscle that keeps twitching and telling your brain that you should have brought your magnesium supplements on the retreat. Or, it’s your mind saying, “why didn’t you just bring the other deodorant, it has magnesium in it, and magnesium absorbs well when you spray it, so you’d be more efficient if you used the right deodorant instead of packing the wrong deodorant and supplements”, oh…my…god…

While sloth is laziness, lack of energy and motivation, anxiety is restlessness. While restlessness and being overstimulated by work drain you, being zoned out and having brain fog (sloth and torpor) isn’t conducive to being productive either - the brain fog is not necessarily the gluten, or the alcohol, or that fact that you’re probably dehydrated.

What to do

So what do we do? Pay attention, now, this is important. Either you’re dull and numb because you don’t have any energy, or you’re burnt out and exhausted because you’ve been using your brain too much and not getting enough sleep.

Sloth, fear, ambition, envy—they are all fragments of inattention.

- JK

If it’s restlessness, that means you’re unable to relax. So relax. Take the brain out of those high frequency waves and spend some time in a lower vibration (alpha brain waves) in a meditative state. Decompress by taking off the pressure to work, or at least to work so hard, or to be stressed out about that deadline - can you push it a week?

If you’re numb and dull, and you find that you’re procrastinating, then don’t resist it. Observe it. You’re looking for the choice to make itself, but that’s perhaps not going to happen on its own, at least not without awareness of the behavior. The key is to review and respond, not to react. If you resist the laziness, or procrastination, or whatever you want to call it, then you’re just being more lazy, to be blunt.

Disclaimer

I should have said this to begin with, but I really don’t like the following words. I said above that I have a fondness for boredom as a concept, and as a reality, so I’ll omit that word here:

• Procrastination

• Perfectionism

• Laziness

• Motivation

• Discipline

• Productivity

These are modern words that embody, either anxiety or laziness. They’re a manifestation of one of the above list items in some way. For example, perfectionism is anxiety, anxiety is fear. You can go down the “fear of success” rabbit hole, or fear of failure or whatever hole you want, but that’s just you spinning your wheels in the mud.

Awareness is energy. When there is complete attention, there is no room for laziness or inattention.

- JK

Lack of motivation is dullness. Procrastination is sloth. So is burnout. These are not new phenomena. New discoveries in neuroscience or pharmacology or AI or anything else are not going to tell us very much more than we knew thousands of years ago. These are normal highs and lows that happen when you work.

There may be more, but that’s enough for now. And, as far as the disclaimer goes, my apologies to anyone triggered by the use of the word laziness. I don’t think it’s used correctly. Laziness has become an unfair character attack, like so many other things people get called - unproductive, inefficient, undisciplined, or unmotivated when it’s simply not true.

I’m using laziness freely here, and I hope that it’s clear what I mean is not unwillingness, but lethargy. A physical and psychological state. We’ve all been there, and the words don’t really matter, as much as I’m fussy about words.

---

For anyone disappointed that this isn’t more of a “how to fix your procrastination” then you’ll be glad to know that I don’t do those. There’s no GAP sweatshirt for fixing your mental health concerns. You need to use awareness, and you need to engage. Only you can help you, ultimately. The answer is clear, pay attention.