"Oh, that’s EASY! Tranquil as against stagnant, hmmmm… let me think… Of course you mean calm as against going nowhere and, therefore, being still actually means… uhmm…Ooops, have to go, lunch date’s waiting… See you… when I see you!"
Heeey…congratulations, that’s a leap forward! You actually gave the thought two minutes and got to halfway through your sentence… there’s definitely some progress there!
You’ve surely either given it or taken it. Gotta go! Can we do this some other time? Meter’s running! I’m late! Sorry can’t talk right now… One of the most profound acts in a culture gripped by the singular objective of getting from here to there is standing still. When street magician David Blane stood motionless atop a giant obelisk as high as the buildings in Washington Park in Manhattan, the naturally frenzied New Yorkers gasped – first in awe then in disbelief – that someone – ANYONE – could actually stand still for a day and a half. Yeah right. Try an hour. For some, keeping still for even a minute makes them sweat. It is true that just as borderline insanity draws debate as to who needs professional help or not, you just can’t tell nowadays who’s on uppers, who has attention deficiency syndrome or who just can’t keep still.
Physical motion, watching television, going on a shopping or drinking spree as therapy effects stress release by way of distraction. Stillness, I discover, precisely, keeps you connected with yourself and the world around you by way of introspection. Right. We’ve heard it ALL before. It’s not like we’re reinventing the wheel here. So why is it that reading about some writer’s trip to Auschwitz in the now deserted Nazi death camps – where humanity was a crime that had to be extinguished – moved me so? There the writer was bracing herself for her first trip to the infamous Hitler hellhole and for an interview with a Holocaust survivor. While there she welcomed the stillness, embraced it and let the silence break through. Her realization: There are no ordinary moments. Being alive is the most extraordinary thing we know. You just can’t have those precious "aha!" moments while riding a rollercoaster. Tossed and turned, whipped left to right, thrown up and down… it is only in the stillness of a moment after the wild time you bought with that ticket that you realize… "Wow, what a ride. I wonder exactly how many times I’d be able to do that in my lifetime until I no longer could."
I was often convinced a broadcast journalist’s life is no way to live. Passion, interest, curiosity, commitment and courage seemed to translate to burnout, cynicism, exhaustion, detachment and, then, a will to basically self-preserve. Catching up on the headlines daily and racing for supremacy in audience share by the day left no time for even trimming my fingernails much less take the moment to be still and ponder. The big picture was getting the team on top of the heap. And, yes, we were on top. Celebrations meant all-nighters. We were celebrating, well, the numbers. It was the thrill of nothing much but of winning, period. I had a hunch it was supposed to be much, much more than just that. Until the point came when there was NO choice but to let go, count to a thousand and beyond, be absolutely motionless because any form of activity was like looking at a cobra, poised to attack, in the eye. It was survival or sudden death. I chose to live.
Today isn’t such a far cry from the madly frantic days of the period I refer to. But I surprise myself pleasantly when in the middle of a national crisis I get a call for an immediate appearance and annotation and my heartbeat doesn’t race. I’m walking through the middle of a crazed newsroom at five o’clock and I can think about preparing for the menu for a high school reunion. It can still get crazy... we’re still winning. Sometimes we relax and we lose. A point or two in the ratings. But the victory goes way beyond numbers realizing that it is one big gift to dish out a story through your eyes and tell it as it is with your words and have the medium to do it. I was insisting on a day trip to Davao just a month ago where I was to shoot and interview for two stories for the weekly magazine show. Cursing my schedule and in tears with frustration, I realized someone made a mistake in computing the travel time. It wasn’t looking good. What was supposed to be a one-hour trip out of the city to Sinuda, Bukidnon took twice as long. It definitely wasn’t going to be peachy for any of us. Reaching the community of the Matigsalog Tribe, an indigenous minority group driven from their mountain homes by man’s modern ways, it took over a minute to break from the interview and know that the trouble was all worth it. The mountain backdrop framing a culture from ages ago preserved through generations – young children braving backyard tattooing with a homemade steel blade and burnt wood ash as a sign of community bonding – I didn’t see a face without a smile or laughter that day I went to the Matigsalog Tribe of the South. Imagine the thousands of moments of stillness in every story told – each one a treasure within a moment’s reach? I didn’t make it to my flight that night. It was worth it. In the stillness amidst chaos, we ask and answer almost simultaneously. It’s like an uncanny ability when the heart is in perfect tune with the mind and you end up convinced – it’s going to be alright.
I was once convinced life wasn’t worth it, too, in fact. In the middle of grief having lost both my parents just months apart in 2004, I stop and, in a moment of stillness, I realize THEIR rollercoaster ride was certainly worth the price of the ticket they paid for. My thoughts of morbidity, of illness and of loss vanish to give way to what I’d focused my gaze on for the past 15 minutes – a wide, perfectly manicured green lawn with a huge water fountain. In the horizon were beautiful buildings of glass and chrome being constructed. What looked like parents with their three kids tugging at them walked past me… Life goes on. I hadn’t cried for my loss since.
Just like everybody else, it hasn’t always been automatic. It’s a skill to develop I guess. In the middle of a dark, untried jungle notorious for carnivorous and merciless beasts, injured and scarred from the exploration, faced with lethal thoughts of the unknown – you can still hear the birds singing.
In the middle of biting cold, Oprah Winfrey creates her own stillness… says a prayer to thank for the luxury of long johns, a sweater, vest, jacket, boots and gloves. Sun Tzu in The Art of War writes, " Disciplined and calm, to await the appearance of disorder and hubbub amongst the enemy – this is the art of retaining self-possession. Ponder and deliberate before you make a move." Leadership and business guru Dr. John Maxwell says, "It’s not what happens to you but what happens in you that really matters. It determines success." King David the Great Psalmist says, "Rest in the Lord and wait patiently on Him; do not fret because the evildoer prospers in his way… He makes wars cease… He breaks the bow and cuts the spear in two; He burns the chariot in the fire. Be still and know that I am God…"
No, we’re not reinventing the wheel here. But we all need the refresher. In the midst of desperation, it’s not unusual to end up kicking and screaming and cursing, "Why me?!" We draw crazy roadmaps, otherwise crucial, for our lives while playing Nintendo. Face it. Oftentimes if we’re not lost yet, we’re soon getting there. As we negotiate our folly, we look for all sorts of familiar signs and landmarks that help us get out of the maze. I think they’re right. No less than the Bible declares it, Dr. Phil prescribes it, Kung Fu master Bruce Lee subscribes to it. It’s very familiar. We’ve all most probably seen the moment and basked in it. We just didn’t know what it was. We don’t have to lose out because of ignorance but because we choose it. Next time we know. It was being still.