No One Can Sit Still

I am sitting on a train.

Directly opposite me is a man in a navy suit — a navy you’ve seen a thousand times. White shirt, no tie. Perhaps he was slimmer when he bought it; because, now, his fabric is working rather hard to keep everything in. Just above his (generic black) belt buckle, you can see a plastic button on his white shirt crying. The overhang of his belly isn’t too bothered about the stress it’s causing it.

He’s clean-shaven, but, of course, he’s missed a few spots. His face, slightly wrinkled like his (generic black) leather shoes, show the signs of age. Perhaps that intense reading is also adding age to his face. Because look at the way he’s poring over his newspaper: Neck cranked up, eyes darted downwards, and mouth slightly open. He stares down at his paper with an almost contemptuous look, like a baron hearing the sob story of some peasant.

Occasionally, his tongue wags around in his slack mouth, making out the peasant’s words printed on the paper. You hear the occasional scoff, sigh, and grunt as he continues to read. And read.

To my right, a claw machine is tightly gripped around her life source. Her phone. Long and impractical, her pink acrylic nails have forced her to assume an awkward grip. Albeit, they haven’t done much to discourage the tapping. The furious, sustained tapping: Pink spider legs kicking continuously at her keyboard. She’s got iMessage open; whatever she’s typing, her recipient is certainly in for a read.

To my left sits a young man donning a black hoodie. To complement, a pair of loose, black joggers sit underneath. His left leg won’t stop shaking. His Nike trainers are causing a slight tremor underneath my own feet. A wireless pair of headphones crown his scalp. What is he listening to? Whatever it is, it seems to have possessed him. His eyes are locked forward and up, looking everywhere and nowhere at the same time. (I don’t think he’s trying to memorise the order of the stops on the Northern Line.)

Newspaper. Phone. Music.

Does anyone just… sit still?

Haha, you’re joking, right? We’re not living in the past mate: Why should we not enjoy the technology of the times?

That’s not the reason I’m asking this question.

No: I’m not talking about sitting still to be more ‘present’ instead. And, no: I’m not talking about a ‘dopamine detox.’ And, again, no: I’m not talking about doing some sort of meditative or reflective practice on the train instead.

These things are more like the newspaper, phone, and music than anything else.

You can’t sit still. You can’t sit still because the show — your show — is still running. It’s all live-action!

The story from the paper. Oh, won’t you talk about it at work? Better yet, maybe you’ll read something that’ll make you sound clever.

“Inflation is going to cause such and such. Don’t you agree?”

Maybe you’ll even get to revel in executing that new word you discovered. You know, the one your coworker will pretend to know after you utter it (but whose sheepish eyes will confess his ignorance nonetheless). The word he’ll scurry away to Google after you leave.

The text message. Oh, of course, you must get those thoughts out. All those, extremely, important… thoughts.

“You go, girl! Set that boy right!”

Or maybe you’re not texting your partner. Maybe it’s just an update you’re posting on the WhatsApp group chat. As you should! What would your group do without knowing such and such? Without knowing this and that? Most importantly, what would you do if you don’t scratch the itch to transmit this, most pressing, information?

The music. Oh, maybe you just like minding your own business. Who could fault that? But, like the boy in the hoodie, your mind is not empty. Far from it. Fireworks, explosions, heartaches, future scenarios: The music is just the backdrop. It’s the instigator — the orchestrator — of all these fantastic, wild… thoughts.

Thoughts.

Even the one who is sitting without moving is not still. Look past the motionless flesh, joints, and bones and you will see anything but stillness. Something is jumping from wall to wall. Pacing back and forth. Shifting between worlds.

The mind. Its Thoughts.

No one can sit still because the show isn’t over. The chases haven’t ended. There are seas yet to be voyaged, and lands yet to visit.

Chase. Voyage. Visit. And again. And again.

And, still, no one is sitting still.

Because you can’t. Because you haven’t realised: There is no show. There is nowhere to go. There is nothing to acquire.

There is only nothing.

One can only sit still when this understanding permeates his every cell.