What Annoyance Teaches You

Published by Matt Church – Founder on 2 March 2023

What might your next annoyance gift you?

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Some people can be so annoying; the way they clump noisily around a kitchen early on a Sunday morning, seemingly indifferent to the possibility of a deep, decadent, sleep-in for their hardworking cohabitant, cough casually through a live symphony during a recorded performance, or listen to TikTok out loud in public spaces without headphones.

Are they clueless, careless, or a gift?

So three things about this…

A practitioner in the awareness school might make the noise part of their practice, perhaps, letting the sounds of Mumbai truck horns add joy to their state of bliss. Using the stance of equanimity to neither want nor not want the TikTok trumpets. A master of the same school might use it as a teachable moment towards the realisation that ‘the other’ is an illusion masking the truth and that one’s annoyance is a subtle technique of the ‘body mind’ to perpetuate the illusion of separation that drives suffering.

A student of human nature and behavioural science might wonder about the loss of social intelligence the screen-slaving of social media has birthed. Phones at the dinner table, handheld videos loud in public places, and selfie conscious posing and pouting at divine sunset moments. It’s easy to wonder about S&M platforms that serve simply to curate one’s current level of consciousness. Maybe your ‘for me’ is a tunnel towards echo-chambered, beige, battery in the matrix; attention holding. Giving you just enough ‘content-caffeine’ to keep your attention as a circle of interest but not enough to grow your circle of concern. Shrinking one in ever contracting circles of consciousness. Moving us towards clueless.

An entrepreneurial entity might track the content being consumed and align their next commercial proposition to meet the real-time market the displayed level of consciousness projects. ‘Meet them where they live’ mantras and ‘give the market what it wants!’ heuristics privileging preference over education. Giving one what is wanted but perhaps not needed usually with enough insight to stay but rarely enough to grow.

A thinker might contemplate this moment and draft a memo to the world unpacking the various angles. Doing so through three lenses? And in a way, making something out of nothing…

Everything that happens serves us somehow if we stay open and aware.

What might your next annoyance gift you?

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