Insomnia is a gross feeder. It will nourish itself on any kind of thinking, including thinking about not thinking.
Interpretation
Insomnia feeds on thoughts, often forcing the mind to dwell on the very act of trying not to think.
This quote highlights the paradox of insomnia, where the struggle to find peace in sleep can intensify one's thoughts rather than silence them. Clifton Fadiman suggests that even the effort to avoid thinking can become a source of nourishment for the restless mind, leading to an endless cycle of overthinking and disturbance.
In practice
During a talk on mental health, I shared this quote to illustrate the struggles of insomnia.
To read in bed is to draw around us invisible, noiseless curtains. Then at last we are in a room of our own and are ready to burrow back, back to that private life of the imagination we all led as a child and to whose secret satisfactions so many of us have mislaid the key.
One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention.
A sense of humor is the ability to understand a joke - and that the joke is oneself.
There are two kinds of writers; the great ones who can give you truths, and the lessor ones, who can only give you themselves.
When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before.
A sense of humor is the ability to understand a joke-and that the joke is oneself.
I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled. I could not control the world I was in, could not walk away from things or people or moments that hurt, but I took joy in the things that made me happy.
Be led by your talent, not by your self-loathing; those other things you just have to manage.
Goodness without wisdom always accomplishes evil.
If you want to obtain the secrets of such wonderful techniques, drill yourself, harden yourself, undergo severe training, abandoned body and mind; follow this course for years and you will naturally reach the profoundest levels. To know if water is hot or cold you must taste it yourself.
Words are not trivial. They matter because they raise consciousness.
We should never rush into folly just because other nations are practicing it.
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