Back in the day, my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather “Tikiri Banda” was an infamous caveman.
Our family reflects on Tikiri Banda as an admirably simple man. When the sun was out, he would hunt. There would be moments of immense stress when he had to decide whether he killed the lion or ran for his life. When the sun went down, things quietened down. He would start a fire. Share stories with his family. And embrace significantly lengthy periods of doing nothing in particular. An interesting balance between adrenaline overload and doing nothing.
If Tikiri Banda had jumped in a DeLorean* and visited the current state of civilisation, he would be a confused man. He did on a daily basis what people these days pay to do. People these days pay to go to meditation retreats. They pay for yoga classes. They spend their hard earned money for vacations on the beach. They pay for an opportunity to “relax” and “do nothing”. It is fascinating. I don’t think there is anything necessarily wrong with this but Tikiri Banda finds it interesting.
Generally, productivity and progress is perceived as good. Stillness or doing nothing is perceived as “unproductive” or something that is reserved for when it’s “time to have a break”.
Let me be clear, I love being productive. I have big hairy audacious goals. That requires a lot of thinking and productivity. However, I have learnt a few things from Tikiri Banda. In today’s society, we seem to always be face to face with the metaphorical lion. We are constantly running on adrenaline….and caffeine. However, instead of the threat of a lion, we deal with the mad morning rush to get to work. We grapple with the need to meet deadlines. We stress about the full waiting room of patients. The day is a blur and somehow we crash into bed at the end of the day. Then we rinse and repeat. What if our chaotic and busy days had scheduled periods of nothingness? A time in the day where we do nothing, Tikiri Banda style.
A good friend of mine once told me that “boredom is not a bad thing, it’s necessary”.
What if boredom was not immediately replaced with something to do?
Take home messages
1) Tikiri Banda remains a legend within our family’s generational history.
2) *I love that i was able to include a Back to the Future reference.
3) Boredom should not always be immediately replaced with something to do.
4) Boredom is necessary.
5) There is a small chance that Tikiri Banda is fictional.
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Related article – I should probably meditate
Much love to you and of course, myself.
Dr G
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