When I attended a 10-day silent meditation retreat a couple of years ago, where, you know, you retreat and meditate silently for 10 days, I faced a great challenge, existential crises even. One day, I got stuck in an infinite song loop, and since no distractions like phones, books, or social interactions were allowed, I couldn't get the song out of my head for an entire day. The worst part was that the song stuck in my head was “Freaky Friday” by Lil Dicky. Even worse, the part stuck in my head was the outro where it goes, “I’m Kendall Jenner, I have a vagina.” Imagine having that sentence playing in an endless loop while meditating all day. With this great mantra stuck in my head, I told myself I would only consume high-quality art from now on.
Another trend I've noticed in myself is when I follow the NBA. There's an argument to be made that while consuming NBA content, I'm not in a great state, as I'm receiving cheap dopamine (dopamine that I didn't work for). But what I want to highlight is that even after just looking up who won the game, my meditation the next morning is colored by basketball. I find my mind drifting to thoughts like, “I wonder who scored the most points?” or even fantasizing about myself being in the NBA.
These experiences opened my eyes to the hidden side effects of having a poor media diet. It's not just the moment when I'm consuming low-quality content that matters; the way my mind moves is dictated by what I consume. And the way my mind moves is essentially my entire life experience. When consuming Lil Dicky, my life experience is Lil Dicky. They say, “you are what you eat,” but I would go even further to say, “you are what you consume.”
This seems obvious when you think about it, thoughts are influenced by what you consume. But the implications are vast when I consider that my whole meditation practice is about trying to slow down and eventually cease my thoughts, and dwell in the “don’t know mind,” the place before any thoughts. Having so many random thoughts, especially from low-quality media like Lil Dicky’s “Freaky Friday,” which I would argue is like the McDonald’s of media diet, cannot be conducive to my practice.
So, what does it look like to follow a healthy media diet? Only consume what I'm okay having a thought loop about for an entire day. Hmm, that really limits things. I don't want a thought loop about anything. And maybe that's the point: to not consume anything and be an ascetic. Nice, I figured it out.