Time alone, anytime

Pico Iyer has an opinion piece in the New York Times today heralding the virtues of silence. It's a beautiful paean to the power of stillness, one that not a few people these days should probably take stock of.

Now this may seem like an ironic commentary from a media practitioner like me. Everyday I am inundated by information, numbers, decimal points, percentage signs and subtexts, while figuring out how to turn all that into a palatable and visual feat. How does that work?

Iyer reports that designer Philippe Starck "[doesn't] read any magazines or watch TV,” nor does he "...go to cocktail parties, dinners or anything like that.” Iyer even shares his own method to taming the madness. He has yet to use a cellphone, or join Facebook or Twitter. He says he even has a periodic trip to a Benedictine hermitage for some time alone.

For my part, my brain starts working at 3 a.m. from Monday to Friday, and when they are not at optimal working condition, I am as good as dead for the rest of the day. I usually don't have a problem with this, and I usually get on with a show as planned. But it is after a show that I'd usually feel worn down.

That is why everyday I try to make sure I go to a yoga class. Apart from providing me a boost to last the rest of my weird day, I make sure I get my dose of yoga because it is the only time I am really, truly alone in my thoughts. Sometimes, I don't even have thoughts. I am just there. Tuned out, but tuned in.

So when a friend once suggested I stop doing yoga because it doesn't really do anything, I recoiled in annoyance. How could he have even suggested taking away the only thing that kept me alive everyday? It's like suggesting that a patient in a coma take off the life support because there's no proof that progress is being made.

So I will stick to yoga. It is an hour I take out of the 17 hours or so that I am awake. Not much to ask for to keep myself in check on so many levels. As the great sages say, "Whatever works."