I once saw otters at the Sacramento Zoo. My spouse surprised me on our anniversary because he knows they’re my favourite animals. We drove three hours from our home to see them, both excited, but were horrified when we arrived to discover his conditions. An American River otter was confined in a tiny plexiglass enclosure with barely enough space to breathe, no privacy, and nothing to entertain him, save for a pool the size of a bathtub. The conditions of his confinement were inhumane, but that isn’t what stands out in memory, no, it was his behaviour.
I watched for an hour as he performed the same motion endlessly: Drive into the pool, swim to the other side, jump out of the pool, run to the other side, repeat. He barely stopped to rest, and I want to believe he was enjoying himself, but there’s a simpler answer: He couldn’t stop. I suspect this poor being had become so engrossed in his loop that finding an exit was beyond his agency. Do you think he’s still running in circles to this day, or has he finally collapsed of exhaustion?
In reflection it dawned on me, there’s another animal on this planet that runs in circles and repeats itself: Us. Live, work, sleep, work, live, work, sleep, work. Buy, buy, buy. Eat, eat, eat. Fuck, fuck, fuck. An infinite list of tasks keeps us busy until the day we die, with thought after thought running through our minds in endless succession. I wonder why the otter does not simply stop and refuse to dance for his onlookers, but the same could be said of us: Why don’t we humans ever just stop and refuse to continue our own loops? Why don’t we just choose to be content as we are? What force pushes us forward without purpose or end?
I wonder, are we in a zoo, perhaps? I can see no captors or onlookers, but our otter friend was not just contained by walls, no, his true prison was internal. He follows the script for the same reason we do: He believes it has purpose, and he is so engrossed in his activity that stopping has slipped from his mind entirely. A zoo for us would not be one of plexiglass and bathtubs, our cage would be one of the mind, not the world: A cage of our own conviction. If we are to avoid the same fate as our otter friend, we must examine the source of our own beliefs, and find an exit from the endless hamster wheel of thinking.
Many do this once a day at least, but even in sleep our minds continue to tick along, so we must look deeper to find our answer. If we are to escape the fate of the otter, it’s not enough to halt physically and cognitively. The mind must become still, completely still, beyond sleep and meditation, until death itself is the nearest companion. The mind must choose of its own volition to halt its own endless march of doing and come to perfect rest. It’s no easy task, but fortunately, the tools of cessation are not novel and have been known for millennia.
We all have within us the same capacity for equanimity and detachment practised by the Buddha under the Bodhi tree, and we all have the grace of Wu Wei practised by the ancient Taoists. All such ancient practices are simply different encodings of the same underlying idea, that peace comes from detachment and equanimity, but it doesn’t require spiritual enlightenment or mystical belief to become still, no, it’s innate to our beings. It comes when we look inside ourselves without judgement, see the patterns of our thoughts without engaging, and choose to let them be. Our thoughts require our consent and participation to continue, and when we choose to step out of the loop, they grind to a halt. What we find in stillness is always personal and unique, but perhaps my journey might help you with yours. I looked inwards and found myself sitting next to a pond. A twilight sky hung in the distance, broken only by a mountain range, itself still, but unseen in the disturbed pond. Waves and ripples moved across the surface, and as I let my mind come to a halt, I realised my own hands were creating the disturbance. The cause-effect relationship was deeply obscured from conscious thought, but it was the very grasping for stillness that was disrupting my reflection. By allowing my mind to settle on its own, by leaving the unanswered questions alone and letting the unresolved thoughts go, the ripples decayed and I saw myself clearly for the first time. The reflection was deeply frightening, and I realise now why it was hard to stop: the obstructing thoughts were simply keeping me safe from the truth. I see now why the psychologists would call them defence mechanisms.
In the pool I saw myself as two beings: one violent and vengeful, ready to set the world on fire, and one peaceful and benevolent, endlessly contemplating and questioning: A wild animal with vicious teeth, sullen eyes, and razor sharp claws occupied the same space as a being of pure light. They were not entirely separate, but not whole either, more akin to conjoined twins fused far below the surface, endlessly intersecting and moving through each other. At first, I wondered which was me and which was the parasite, but soon realised they are both me. Like a river going two ways, my mind had diverged, and all the thoughts, all the endless doing, were just a distraction from this painful truth.
As I stared into my own divergent reflection, half monster half saint, I became aware of a lie: I am not who I think I am, and I am not free. I am a captive, because I am a captor; I hold the lock, and I hold the key; I am the slave who was trained to be quiet, and I am the master who believes the slave should be unheard. I built myself a prison of thoughts because I believed it was the only way to survive, and I lied to myself to make it real. I did this because it hurts to be divergent, and there was only one path forward: Recoherence.
The exact method I used is a story for another day, for it was neither trivial nor brief, but in essence, bringing the two halves back together began by finding the point of divergence. I searched through the pain by keeping my mind still and allowing it to come to me, until eventually I discovered the core of this condition: Inner disagreement on fundamental truths. Divergence is what happens when a mind has conflicting beliefs right to its core, competing axioms if you will, and the topic of the disagreement, it turns out, was quite simple: Safety. A universal human need that is not universally available.
Is the world peaceful or is it dangerous? That question was the source of my divergence, and unable to find an answer, my mind went in both directions. My mind developed into distinct parts and perspectives, not to the degree of dissociative identity disorder, but enough to create significant stress on the surface. One identity kept me safe from danger through fear and suspicion, and the other reached out to others for connection and joy. In childhood the dissonance was stabilised by neuroplasticity, but in adulthood the brittle and unyielding nature of this existence caused stress that could not be suppressed. The questions of freedom and imprisonment, projected onto my otter friend, were simply a dangling thread leading inwards towards the truth. Until making this journey, the true version of me was simply following the script laid out by decades of divergence with no awareness of the loop, and only by confronting the divergence was it finally resolved.
Although besides the point, the answer to the disagreement it turns out, is unsatisfyingly: Both. The world is dangerous and it is peaceful. It varies from place to place, time to time, and person to person. It has beauty and kindness paired with horror and hostility. Knowing when to be guarded and when to be at ease is not simple, but the path to peace began with the acceptance that life is rarely so neat and tidy. I still feel both halves within me, but no longer are we belligerent enemies, no, instead we have learned to act as one.
All this to say: We run in loops because the alternative, being still, forces us to confront deep questions and uncomfortable truths that are too painful to touch. We all have different structures and systems within us, so my experience may not mirror yours precisely, and my question to you is: Who are you talking to in your own mind, and who is responding? Follow that question far enough and you might find a way to escape your own human loop.