I once saw otters at the Sacramento Zoo. My spouse surprised me on our anniversary because he knows they’re my favorite animals. We drove three hours from our home, 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 saddening, but that isn’t what stands out in memory: It was his behavior.
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?
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?
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 must 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.
Having just written these words, I lay awake in bed, apparently doing nothing, but we are rarely doing nothing. Our minds continue to tick when our bodies are still and this idea is festering. If we are to escape the fate of the otter, it’s not enough to halt physically. The mind must also become still, deeply, and completely, beyond sleep and meditation. The mind must choose to halt its own endless march of doing. 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 practiced by the Buddha under the Bodhi tree, and we all have the grace of Wu Wei practiced 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. It’s innate to our beings, it comes when we look inside ourselves without judgment, and choose to see the patterns we take for granted. 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, still, but unseen in the disturbed pond. Waves moved across the surface, and as I let my mind become still, I realized 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, by leaving the unanswered questions alone and letting the unresolved thought go, the pool became still and I saw myself clearly. The reflection was deeply frightening, and I realize now why it was too hard to stop: the obstructing thoughts were keeping me safe. I see why others call them defense 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 realized they are both me. Like a river going two ways, my mind had diverged, and all the thoughts, 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 the prison of thoughts because I believed it was the only way to survive this existence, 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 is a story for another day, for it was not trivial or brief, but bringing the two halves back together began by finding the point of divergence. I searched through the pain by keeping my mind still and letting it come to me. Eventually I discovered the core of this condition: Inner conflict on a fundamental level. Divergence is what happens when a mind has conflicting beliefs right to its core, 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 pain that could not be suppressed. The questions of freedom and imprisonment, projected onto my otter friend, were simply a dangling thread leading inwards. Until making this journey, the true version of me was simply following the script laid out by decades of divergence.
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 recoherence began with the acceptance that life is rarely so neat and tidy. I still feel both halves within me, but no longer are they belligerent enemies, 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 truths that are too painful to touch. We all have different structures and systems within us, so my experience may not mirror yours precisely, but my question to you is: Who are you talking to in your own mind? Follow that question far enough and you might find a way to escape your own human loop.