Audio: Stillness Is Not Paralysis
A thought spiral from France: Distance, Change, and the Slow Work of Becoming
I’ve been thinking a lot about stillness - or rather, I’ve been noticing it. The way you see a car everywhere right after you buy one. Man, I never realized there were so many Hondas on the road…
Except in this case, it’s not Hondas - it’s people feeling stuck, frustrated, unsure. Some folks I know say that they’re stuck too, or trying to keep on with it all. Something is happening, or maybe not happening, and we’re all feeling it.
Maybe a considered rant, a scattered meditation, or a slow-burning reckoning. This one had more titles than content…
Stillness is not paralysis.
This is an audio reflection, a rant, a meditation - whatever it is - on detachment, adaptation, and the disorienting experience of watching the world burn from a distance.
I try to ground it in a metaphor. I promise no insights or opportunities for your own personal growth or learning, but it might happen.
Lately, I feel like my mind is buffering, caught between the relentless chaos of what’s unfolding in the U.S. and the slower, steadier rhythm of life here in France. There’s a pull in both directions: the urge to keep up, to react, to do something, to think something – something!
Then there’s a quiet realization that maybe stepping back, slowing down, is the only way to process anything at all.
Maybe.
That’s easier said than done. For the record, I don’t think I’m doing it right now.
Distance does change things. I live in France now, in a place that is becoming familiar, even as I still feel tethered to where I came from. Life moves differently here—slower, more deliberate.
Some of that is comforting. Some of it is frustrating.
I wanted this change, and I still want it, but adaptation isn’t instant. There’s a shift happening, or maybe there needs to be one.
I’m not there yet, but I can feel it. And maybe, for now, that’s enough.
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Trigger Warning?
This is a semi-scripted rant because I can’t seem to get anything fully finished at the moment, and yes, I curse in it and some folks are sensitive to that.
They’re just words, after all.
