Anesthetic
Rescuing us from the pain of thinking
CONTEMPLATION
“Entertainment is an anesthetic to the mind. It rescues us from the pain of thinking.
It is mid-afternoon.
As I sit here at my desk and contemplate, my stomach growls.
I do not speak “stomach,” but the message is loud and clear: I am hungry.
I should have eaten breakfast, and I should not have postponed lunch. But my studies are too enticing. Why would I take the time to feed my body when I can instead sit here and feed my mind?
My stomach growls again.
“Give me nutrients,” it demands. “Give me hearty calories. I want a plate of meat and potatoes. I want vegetables. Do you not want your body to grow strong? You must feed me, and you must feed me well,” I hear its deep voice rumble.
I close my laptop and walk into the kitchen.
Opening the fridge, I spy a juicy tomahawk steak, loads of asparagus, potatoes, and an assortment of vegetables to make a salad. Letting the fridge door slam shut, I gaze at the counter to my left and see a bag of chips, a soda, and a prepackaged sandwich. “This will suffice,” I mumble under my breath.
I pour a glass of soda and start eating the sandwich and chips.
“Nooo!”, my stomach yells. “I was not hungry in order to simply be satiated. I was rumbling because your body needs nutrients, not junk.”
I keep eating. My stomach grows silent. I am full.
Now, you may think me a fool.
You know that hunger is not simply a discomfort that must be numbed.
You know that food is not an anesthetic meant only to quiet the pangs of hunger.
Hunger is a signal. It is a signal that our body needs nutrient-dense calories to continue operating properly.
We rely on food for strength and growth, and so our body tells us when we need it.
When my stomach growls, I do not want to fill it up with junk just to silence it. I want to hear its request and give it what it needs.
That makes perfect sense, does it not?
We feed our bodies when they need nutrients for growth.
…But what of our minds?
When our minds grow silent and empty, do we hear their pleas?
When our minds demand food for thought, when they long for inspiration, discussion, and contemplation, do we deliver?
Do we acknowledge that our minds, too, need quality input in order to grow?
How many of us, when our minds ask for a meat-and-potatoes sort of meal, look for a way to silence their cries by satiating them with junk instead of giving them what they need?
How often are the hunger pangs of our minds treated with the anesthetics of distraction and entertainment?
After all, that is what distraction and entertainment are: junk food for the mind, intended to sedate its desire for knowledge and understanding. If the mind demands thought, but we provide entertainment instead, it will be satiated and grow silent, forgetting that it had craved something more or more nutritious. But it did not receive what is required for strength and growth.
Just as our stomachs thirst and hunger for nutrients to help our bodies grow strong, our minds thirst and hunger for thought and inspiration to help us grow to be more knowledgeable, intentional, considerate, thoughtful, and aware.
And what happens to those who feed their minds with entertainment instead of the contemplation that is needed?
They become passive, for it is thought that leads to action.
They become inconsiderate, for their understanding is limited.
They become thoughtless, for all thought has been drowned out by distraction.
They walk through life unaware that it is passing them by.
So, as I sit here at my desk, I realize that when my stomach is hungry, what I feed it is important because it fuels my body.
I also realize that my mind hungers and thirsts as well. And how I respond to that, what I feed my mind, is even more important, because it shapes my thoughts and directs the course of my life.
