Rewilding Myself

“I like how these weekly Spotify playlists almost always turn up something good,” I tell my daughter.

“It’s not that impressive. They just pack them with songs from artists they already know you like,” she says.

It’s true, and it explains why, as much as I enjoy listening to music I enjoy listening to, it is all “of a piece.”

Sometimes I get bored with myself.

“So, do I like what I like because I like it, or because I keep being told that I like it?” I ask.

But she’s already flipping the car keys off the hook and leaving for the supermarket.

The blogs and newsletters I read begin to look the same too.

Then, I come across an essay by Clive Thompson entitled “Rewilding Your Attention” in which he examines the benefits of turning your back on the algorithm from time to time and going “off-piste” to find new thinking and new inspiration.

The reason we don’t do it much is that it takes a lot of work sifting through acres of material that is of little interest.

Therapy can be like that too. The constant wading through experiences that seem to have no bearing on anything until you eventually come across something shiny lying in the wet grass.

The greatest benefit comes from the most consistent and unstinting work.

The other thing that helps is a willingness to see that what you thought of as one thing can turn out to be something different.

I decide to get my old CD player out and, instead of letting an algorithm decide what I listen to, play some albums, including the tracks that, in the past, I would have skipped through.

“What are you doing?” My daughter asks hauling shopping bags in from the car.

“I’m setting up my CD player and turntable so that I can narrow my horizons and get more inspired.”

She looks at me blankly before throwing a couple of packs of ready grated cheese onto the countertop.

“What are you doing buying these monstrosities?” I ask.

“I like them, they’re convenient, and they’re great on top of nachos.”

“Disgusting,” I say over my shoulder trying to wire the hi-fi to the speakers.

She spends a good proportion of the afternoon making a vegetarian chilli and nachos for her and her boyfriend’s dinner before she leaves for the gym.

Later, after we’ve eaten, she comes down from her room upset that her boyfriend is apparently so tired after work that he doesn’t have the energy to get up and eat the meal she has made.

“That’s so disrespectful,” I tell her.

“I know,” she says, in a way that conveys her irritation at my telling her something already clear rather than addressing the hurt she feels as a result of it.

Her mother convinces her to eat her dinner anyway and suggests opening a bottle of Prosecco which is a masterful piece of parenting.

“Would you like to try my chilli?” she asks.

Although I’ve already eaten I want to show solidarity rather than suggesting we take a bowl upstairs and chuck it over her boyfriend’s head.

I serve myself a modest bowl full and we sit together.

“It might be the Prosecco,” I say, “But these nachos with the ready-grated plastic cheese are really good.”

She smiles at me as fireworks crack and sparkle in the night sky through the dining room window.