I am a husband, writer, and teacher exploring what it means to cultivate mental silence.

Why am I doing this?

Number of steps perday. Hours of sleep logged. Heart rate checks at any point during the day.Number of minutes of calm, focus, and tension accumulated over the course ofthe day. The Fitbit Charge HR and the Spire are capable of reporting out thisdata. However, can that data change our state of mind? Can it lead oneto a state of mental silence? Anyone following my writing knows I'm trying tofigure all of this out. One thing I have found is that getting all of this datain front of me has made me more aware. This awarenessis complicated. Trying to figure out what to do with "it"…even more complicated. ShouldI, for example, treat a day with more minutes of tension than calm; a failure?Should I infer that if my heart rate rises steadily, on my way to work, thatit's going to be a bad day?

 

Maybe it is me thatis complicating the whole process. After all, it is my ability to use languageand formulate ideas; interpreting them as good or bad, that makes things murky.Maybe I shouldn't be trying to do anything with the data at all. Maybe the wholepoint of using wearables like the Fitbit and Spire is to just be aware. 

Stop! Slow down! Unplug?

Mixed Method Zooming Out: Spire and Blogging my way to Mental Silence!