Movement & Equanimity
Ataraxia and the curse of a chair
We are still, but it is not ataraxia1; it is panic, brain rot, and fear.
Our need for movement is strong. Is our urge to move seasonal? Or maybe it’s just my preoccupation?
Sitting is my enemy, to become my ally only after a long day of “real” work. The quotations here are an attempt at self-sarcasm. Even though the most professional success I’ve attained in the work world has been behind a desk or presenting in a stuffy classroom, none of these “successes” ended in a work day that I felt good about. “Good” in the sense that I’m truly tired; my muscles fatigued and some thing accomplished. Where I see a product after I toil: a ditch dug, next year’s firewood stacked, a cutting board crafted, a slain deer lying at my feet.
“Disgraceful: for the soul to give up when the body is still going strong.”
- Book 6, Meditations
At the end of these days, sitting makes sense, and we look forward to it. Our bones ache. Sitting permits physical recovery, but equally important is mental reflection. Reflect on the day, the triumphs, mistakes, new plans, and revisions. We “sleep on it” because we know, subconsciously, we must employ our whole brain to digest the day’s happenings. And it happens on its own. Being tired after real work is sublime, and for me, I experience it when I’ve chainsawed all day in the wintry woods or have chased, shot, and dragged a deer out of those same wintry woods.
Full mind-body workouts that are dynamic and use our being in its entirety – that’s the goal.
The humans who provide us with hints about our existence before agriculture and cities suggest that our tendency to move is normal. Anthropology indicates we’ve always been busy with activity; any person who woke up and sat for as many hours as a modern knowledge worker wouldn’t last long in a pre-Mesopotamian Earth. While humans have always faced hardships (e.g., droughts, accidents), today’s challenges require more sitting in meetings and at desks. Generally, the highest-paying jobs require us to sit in the car and then in the office, and then in the car again. We’re living an aberration where professional and personal obligations suppress our desire to move.
For me, this tension has always been a struggle, an innate push and pull that remains unsettled.
Ataraxia (Greek): “freedom from trouble or anxiety”
Stillness is a needed night to movement’s day. But today, we’re too still, and there’s an imbalance between this stillness and activity. There’s nothing to reflect on, feel tired from, or mull over for tomorrow. Only more sitting. Electrons and screens fill the void that movement once occupied, but they don’t do the trick.
To a Pyrrhonist, ataraxia is calm in the face of adversity. Nuanced views also suggest an interpretation that hints at indifference, though that view is not my own.
I think you’d enjoy The Extended Mind by Annie Murphy Paul. She discusses how movement enhances cognition and writes about how the brain at cognitive overload extends into the body (often in motion) and the environment to solve problems and excite new ideas. 💡
Love it, Jesse. I just read a book on the Pitjantjatjara people of central Australia. When they sat, it was on the ground, and their mobility was almost unbelievable. Seeing a man above 60 sit between his legs with his shins on the ground, or in a flawless squat, is a worthy goal.
Tangential to your point, sitting without the comfort of a chair forces constant movement: getting up, walking a bit, switching positions. It almost becomes a "workout", that invention of the modern world.