Stagnancy

Malaise creeps into the subconscious mind like mildew into the corners of a squalid room. Intent is devoid of initiative. That which must be acted upon can be perceived, yet is left to lie stagnant. No, it is not procrastination; distracting whims and gratifying pastimes are rarely indulged. Instead, it is reliving Joseph and I’s climb of El Misti: lumbering bodies heaving one leg ahead of the other up a slippery scree slope, while the mind struggles against its own mountain of exhaustion and oxygen deprivation. Mist blankets the shingly volcano, lathered in snow for the solitary day of the year. It is a day of forlornly trying to usurp the sloth of both mind and body. Left foot, right foot. Being unable to see our objective itches away at contentment. This hazy existence, where the confused mind takes longer to respond and where the journey has no apparent direction, portrays the general feeling of stagnancy.

Stagnancy is when an environment or a mindset no longer allows growth to flourish. Fresh experiences, together with the insights stirred up by reflection, form the strongest stimuli for this growth. To begin conveying the past year’s changes in both mindset and the opportunity for experience, and with this the lifestyle of stagnancy, several impressions from the trip must be covered. Challenge, fulfilment, isolation, wonder: our experience grew with every aspect of the trip, whether negative or positive. Cooking a meal might have involved the logistics of buying food, exchanging simple words in broken tongues, and either meeting other travellers in the hostel kitchen, or dining alone and wishing that the family was there for company. In the merest task lurked challenge, achievement, segregation or immersion, and even fulfilment. Travelling may well be the antithesis of stagnancy.

Complementing this world of invigoration and growth is a mind prepared to explore, to digest and to reflect. It is the willingness to extract insight from experience that accelerates growth so rapidly, rather than experience itself. Crucially, insight links sensation with application. For character to be strengthened, the lessons of experience must be applied throughout everyday life. As significant as insight is, provided that there is an effective platform for it such as discourse or writing, its only real limitation is memory. New impressions of old experiences only require a conversation or the discovery of a significant passage in a book. Anything which transmits fresh perspective of a shared experience can be inspiring. For this reason, second-hand books of poetry and prose are now piled upon my desk. Tapping into the wisdom of others could, with the right mindset, begin to inspire in a way that life currently cannot.

Yet of the last five books I have read, four have been teen fantasy. The mind slavers for instant gratification. Shelley, Yeats and even the beloved Keats idle forlornly, wondering if they will ever be called upon both to gratify and for immersive study. Present circumstance cannot be blamed for this neglect. Instead, the fault lies with a  mind cultivated by a renewed appreciation of comfort. From this ease has spawned lethargy. In a way, this progression is natural: travelling heightens awareness for the amenities of home, for the stress of managing money, and for the absence of personal connections. However, these concepts are rarely seen in a balanced light. Microwaving leftover mince to eat while lounging upon a cosy and familiar couch, wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants as ragged as they are snug, enjoying that ever-quoted movie stretching across the widescreen TV... travelling makes the trivial appear unbearably alluring. As expected and as required, home would fail to indulge such nostalgia. Imagination only blurred what is of true value to a satisfying life.

The struggle between the desire for the new and the satisfaction with the old is a function of how each is valued. At various times, different values rise to greater heights. Usually, this occurs when their absence feels pronounced. While vomiting throughout an eighteen hour bus ride across the Andes, you can be sure that health and comfort were valued very highly. In France, however, there was a much less tangible feeling of neglect. A poignant sense of failure had descended upon me. Discipline, friendship, reason, direction: I had deserted every one of these, and more. From the despondency through Rennes, Vannes and Carnac crept an opportunity for reflection. In order to repel the stagnancy of the soul, all that was required was to verbalise my values, then act upon them. At Carnac, the second day was spent writing. Fulfilment slowly began to surface as creativity and work ethic were tested. Discipline wove its way into the plans for the future; three hours per day were budgeted for writing. Not only was this maintained, but sightseeing became enjoyable and rewarding again. Finally, a productive and balanced mindset was attained, and it owed to the understanding of value.

Values grow, change and are elucidated over time. With this insight came a realisation: much of what appeared to be important was only illusory. Clutter and excess had to be reduced from thought and emotion. The sights of Rouen were sacrificed to stem my stress at not having a thorough itinerary. Independence flourished as my reliance on impersonal connections abated. Nevertheless, a lifetime of indiscipline could not be overturned instantly. An inordinate amount of time was squandered at an internet cafe in Cologne, for instance, and I wrote very little en route from Abisko to Athens. Insecurities prevailed; lacking the killer instinct to sever and restructure my writing was, and is, the worst. Like insight, creativity need not spring from new creations; it may also be harnessed by adopting fresh perspectives for old works. Still, there was a pronounced shift towards ambition in my mentality. While there were new experiences to be both enjoyed and reflected upon, the cogs of initiative continued to turn. Having acclimatised to the needs of life, however, there was to be another shift.

Despite looking forward to the return home, it is clear that Joseph and I were not prepared. Travelling tends to condense everything into a brief window of time: more emotions are felt, more wisdom is garnered, more growth is undertaken than in a comparable time of ordinary existence. Old lifestyles yawned, dusted themselves off, and leapt into our pockets from their place of hibernation. At home, little had changed. Yet the greatest struggle has been expression. Thousands of photos continue to idle on hard drives, experiences remain unshared, and the insights and improvements of the trip lie stagnant. Every aspect relates to one another. What value are hundreds of photos of Iguazu when more significance can be derived from a single shot of the Abisko wilderness? If every photo taken could be a word expressed, I would sacrifice them all. Now, days have stretched into weeks until nine months have passed; still almost all discourse about my and Joseph’s experiences has only been between us. This was almost all that we required, too, due to the abrupt adoption of the old lifestyle by virtue of its ease, its years of familiarity and its home ground advantage over new wisdom.

However, the grace period for this stagnancy has passed. Two strategies are in place, the first of which focuses on removing clutter. Thought and emotion have previously been targeted; the present aim is old habits and pastimes. Watching TV, playing trivia and computer games, designing bridge system, indulging in sweet foods, following current events, and bland conversation for the sake of fulfilling social expectation: all, for the most part, have been tossed into the scrap heap. Anything which is not beneficial or necessary or satisfying will come under fire. Second is the renewed pursuit of passions. Long neglected through sloth, frustration and circumstance, it is difficult to coax the mind into the resumption of, particularly, writing and reading in depth. The disappointment of skills left to stagnate reverberates in every slash of blue biro, discarding words that cannot seem to be moulded into expression. Forlornness echoes in the jarring breaks between keyboard taps. Slow, forced, unnatural. Nothing easier was expected. Nothing easier is desired. Through diligence will come efficiency, a sharpening of the mind which will banish stagnancy for good.

Stagnancy may be the current focus, but it is only a slight obstacle. The pursuit of conditions, both mental and environmental, that allow for each of life’s values to be satisfied, is closer to the ideal. Values will forever evolve depending on circumstance, experience, or simply time; the resulting development of character is, thus, a process that can never be completed. Currently, drawing insight from new experiences is something which I value immensely. Coming to terms with the dearth of new experiences has been difficult, yet there will be many more adventures in the future. Until everything has been extracted from the past, there can be no excuse for stagnancy in the present. As for the severance of clutter and the focus on productivity, these are really based on the same principle: the simplification of life. Through discipline, this may become second nature. If the entire process finally allows some experiences and insights to be shared, then at least some good may come out of stagnancy.