This morning I read that my bank was in distress. It freaked me out. So, I went small.
Everyone is talking about attention these days. How to focus, be mindful, not be distracted. And I think the bad word there is “distraction.” Because there’s another way to not be attentive that’s actually fantastic: escapism.
Both distraction and escapism can pull me away from the present. And both can sometimes make me feel worse than better. But distraction also feels bad while I’m doing it where escapism feels great. For example, reading upsetting news is my favorite distraction. It brings me no joy. Another favorite distraction is social media. It gives me a low hum of misery in exchange for me not doing anything helpful.
But one of my favorite escapes is immersing myself in a tiny world. It’s a lovely way to access a creative space that feels wonderful. When I’m in a tiny world, I am both disconnected from the world, and connected to something better than the world.
In this lovely post, Elissa Altman calls this state “Intereority” and likens it to creative time.
I love a feeling of reverie. It happens in museums sometimes, or when I read a perfect sentence in a book. It’s both soothing and sublime — a connection to a pre-articulation of something very important. And I have to be utterly useless to experience it. It’s the ultimate unproductive, escapist state. Like disassociation, but better.
When I heard that my bank was in distress this morning, I decided I needed to go into another world. Here’s how I did it. I have a small, silver-plated vase that I inherited from my grandmother. I recently polished it, and I like to put little bouquets of many types of greenery in there so it resembles a tiny world that I can mentally inhabit.
My son gave me this little thing which I keep on my desk. It can also bring me into a small-world reverie if I stare at it long enough.
If you want a reverie force multiplier, try some music. My brother-in-law, Eric, turned me on to Lo-Fi music. Very good for checking into a hypnotic-state, and he makes some good stuff. But for the ‘small world’ theme, I’m going to recommend Lights Light Up, by Fenne Lily. I like the song when I need to tune in to tune out, but the album cover is also very cozy.
So that’s it, my friends. Cultivate a connection to the part of you that truly doesn’t care about whatever the world is up to.
Put on a song
Delve into a bouquet of flowers
Set out a tray of tea with a plate of sliced apples and orange
Light some incense or a candle
And then just stop caring about the bank that’s failing, the globe that’s warming, the deadline that’s looming, and lean into feeling how good it is to be able to enjoy something so small so much.
Find some interoriority, reverie, poetry in a tiny act of resistance to a world where we’re supposed to care so much about so much. Take that escape.
Be useless for a change.
Until next week I remain,
Your Free Life Coach,
Sean Sakamoto
Escapism as described here sounds like meditation, but more fun. Focusing on something beautiful is a helpful practice.