Distraction and the "Intimate Interrupter"
Mary Oliver’s “intimate interrupter”
In her essay, “Of Power and Time,” in her book Upstream, Mary Oliver speaks of “the intimate interrupter.” She speaks of distractions and interruptions as coming from within: “from the self itself, or some other self within the self, that whistles and pounds upon the door panels and tosses itself, splashing, into the pond of meditation.”
Oliver notes, “But that the self can interrupt the self -and does - is a darker and more curious matter.”
And she’s so right.
(Note: if you’d like to delve further into Mary Oliver’s exploration of this concept, I highly recommend the Marginalian’s essay, The Third Self: Mary Oliver on Time, Concentration, the Artist’s Task, and the Central Commitment of the Creative Life.)
What’s underlying the “intimate interrupter”?
It is not uncommon for us to sit down to a task - oftentimes a difficult task, a task that feels urgent, a task that must be done - and find ourselves distracted, wasting time doing something much less timely or important, procrastinating.
And we blame ourselves, and beat ourselves up, and think ourselves lazy.
But … what if we’re not lazy? What if this “intimate interrupter” is driven by something else?
Very often, this pattern of behavior is easily explained by the presence of - and our response to - negative emotion. Negative emotion can refer to significant anxiety, worry, or stress if the task feels daunting or you doubt your ability to complete it. Or, negative emotion can be relatively benign, boredom or apathy, for example; maybe the task before you is energetically draining or simply uninteresting and you just don’t want to do it.
Regardless of the negative emotion, it’s presence prompts us to want to get away from it, to escape from it.
And so, the “intimate interrupter” is very timely in providing us with an out: something to check on, a small, easy task that needs to be completed, a desire to check social media, or a million other, much more pleasant options.
I love Oliver Burkeman’s explanation of this pattern, and his provision of the context of digital distraction. He writes: “You don’t get dragged away against your will. You surrender willingly. It’s a relief to turn from the unpleasantness of a challenging work task, or a moment of boredom while caring for a child, to scroll through your phone instead.”
How to respond to the “intimate interrupter”
It’s important to recognize you can’t stop it.
Our job is, instead, to increase awareness of when it’s happening, and then choose to respond differently to it, to refrain from seeking the escape … which is, perhaps obviously, uncomfortable.
The solution then is two-fold:
Practice noticing when the urge to avoid or escape arises. Be curious about it. Notice what form it takes. Is it an urge to reach for your phone when then leads to frittering away 20 minutes scrolling? Or, are you engaging in other, less important items in the window you set aside for the more important task? More and more our phones are becoming the vehicle for distraction and escape - which pose their own, insidious side effects - but these sneaky behaviors, these attempts to avoid unpleasant emotion, are creative and often pose as productive behaviors when they are really just avoidance. Work to be intentional with your behavior. Be mindful. And when you inevitably stray from your intention, try to catch the “intimate interrupter” at work.
And, then, choose discomfort. Embrace the suck. Don’t run from the uncomfortable feeling. Stop resisting what is. Instead acknowledge and accept that it’s hard, that it’s difficult, that you’re afraid you may fail, that you’re bored, that you don’t want to do it. Acknowledge and feel the feeling you’re trying to avoid. And as Oliver Burkeman puts it, “ Consider the possibility that mild discomfort – butterflies in the stomach, a sense of difficulty, a moment of boredom – might simply be the price of doing things you care about.”
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