Insomnia is a gross feeder. It will nourish itself on any kind of thinking, including thinking about not thinking.
Interpretation
Insomnia feeds on thoughts, often forcing the mind to dwell on the very act of trying not to think.
This quote highlights the paradox of insomnia, where the struggle to find peace in sleep can intensify one's thoughts rather than silence them. Clifton Fadiman suggests that even the effort to avoid thinking can become a source of nourishment for the restless mind, leading to an endless cycle of overthinking and disturbance.
In practice
During a talk on mental health, I shared this quote to illustrate the struggles of insomnia.
To read in bed is to draw around us invisible, noiseless curtains. Then at last we are in a room of our own and are ready to burrow back, back to that private life of the imagination we all led as a child and to whose secret satisfactions so many of us have mislaid the key.
One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention.
A sense of humor is the ability to understand a joke - and that the joke is oneself.
There are two kinds of writers; the great ones who can give you truths, and the lessor ones, who can only give you themselves.
When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before.
A sense of humor is the ability to understand a joke-and that the joke is oneself.
You don't meditate once and suddenly your life turns around. What it does is it lets you train your brain to be able to become more stable in an action-oriented way.
Keep a little space in your heart for the improbable. You won't regret it.
I know of no case where a man added to his dignity by standing on it.
Careful as they may be, developers of Eiffel libraries will always run into cases in which, after releasing a library class, they suddenly experience what in French is called esprit de l'escalier or wit of the staircase: a great thought which unfortunately is an afterthought, like a clever reply that would have stunned all the other dinner guests - if only you had thought of it before walking down the stairs after the party is over.
Consider whether fulfillment of the goal you have chosen will constitute success. What is success? If you possess health and wealth, but have trouble with everybody (including yourself), yours is not a successful life. Existence becomes futile if you cannot find happiness. When wealth is lost, you have lost a little; when health is lost, you have lost something of more consequence; but when peace of mind is lost, you have lost the highest treasure.
Do not repeat after me words that you do not understand. Do not merely put on a mask of my ideas, for it will be an illusion and you will thereby deceive yourself.
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