What To Consume?

Everything we consume either heal or poison us. We tend to think of nourishment only as what we take in through our mouths, but what we consume with our eyes, our ears, our noses, and our bodies are also food. From the conversations going on around us, and those we participate in. The quality of conversation matters, when your conversational partner is conversing with hate, anger, and frustration, you are ingesting these toxins in too. Without awareness over the power of all these, we might be poisoning ourselves without knowing it.

Today in this newsletter, I would like to narrow down the attention to what we consume on the Internet. The Internet is a place we can consume in a lot with just a few minutes, which means we should be more conscious of what we are reading, watching, and paying attention to.

Since the beginning of the lockdown, I’ve actively chosen to return to the awareness of my breath and body, bringing attention to what is in me and around me. Time spent online is significantly reduced, and I certainly feel more grounded as a result. Here are some changes I made to ensure myself ingesting more nourishment:

• Overall time reduction on social media: cutting down Twitter browsing time, not churning out the mundane, superfluous, and meaningless to other people who are consuming my content.
• Switching to a new Instagram account, following only people with meaningfully curated/aesthetically pleasing content that brings peace, wonders, and a sense of appreciation to the heart. It is a place where one wouldn’t have to be exposed to random TikTok videos.
• Switching entertainment subscription from Netflix to the Criterion Channel, which features films made by renowned film directors from around the world. Most of the films featured are made by film directors who had refined what filmmaking is, from Ingmar Bergman, Roberto Rossellini, to Jean-Luc Godard. Seeing their films has always been a moving experience for me, aesthetically, artistically and philosophically. This fulfilling experience can’t be found with the content available on Netflix where most content seeks to capture the surface attention, not the heart.

Indulgence takes beyond the form of food. You can indulge with your eyes, ears, and body if you choose to, and nourish within self along the way. There is joy in choosing what your mind and soul will consume every day — curate your very own unique blend of nourishment, whatever it may be. I wish you peace, joy and nourishing awareness.

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