Coherence, Doing Nothing and Plato
May 11, 2025
8 min read
•
Newsletter
{Body}
Coherence in the body
In physics, coherence describes energy patterns that sync up perfectly, creating exponentially more power than they could alone.
A laser is a good example. What makes the beam so powerful isn't its wattage but its coherence — its ability to perfectly align all of the light waves in phase and direction, which then allows the beam to travel great distances and etch metal.
Noise-cancelling headphones operate based on coherence, too. Tiny microphones detect incoming sound waves, and the device then generates precisely opposite waves — peaks aligned with incoming troughs. This destructive interference (a form of coherent counter-phasing) cancels the waves out, creating silence.
Coherence also explains why soldiers must break step when crossing bridges. When hundreds of troops march in perfect unison, their footfalls "cohere" and can synchronize with the bridge's natural frequency, potentially causing it to collapse (despite that bridge normally being strong enough to withstand the entire troop jumping all over it).
You can begin to see that — as a concept — coherence works on every single scale and level of reality: from the quantum (laser pointers) to the mechanical (sound waves) to the structural (bridges) and everywhere in-between.
That means the principle of coherence is at play in your body, too.
When your biological rhythms — heart rate, breathing, neural firing, and cellular vibrations — synchronize, they create a state of physiological coherence that enhances energy efficiency, information processing, and healing capacity. This state is measurable — when the body reaches coherence, correlating with enhanced immune function, mental clarity, and emotional stability.
Stay tuned next week when I go into depth in the body, explaining how we “de-cohere” and get sick.
{Mind}
Don’t just do something, stand there!
The ability to turn off all thoughts — to completely relax your mind — ultimately depends on your willingness to do nothing.
Why? Because a mind engaged in doing must simultaneously be engaged in thinking in order to complete its respective task.
Unfortunately, we often often "doing nothing" with merely switching between different forms of stimulation. Absent-mindedly watching Netflix, sitting on the beach reading science fiction, or even staring at shapeshifting clouds while mentally naming their forms — none of this is truly doing nothing. In each case, the eyes still dart and the mind still formulates.
Indeed, we've become so allergic to this do-nothingness that even activities once considered leisure have been hijacked by productivity culture: Going for a walk is now "clearing mental blocks" or "getting your steps in." Meditation practice has been reduced to “hours sat” and/or “depth achieved”. Hell, even our rest has become a form of work — "recovery" to optimize our performance.
What does doing nothing actually entail?
Traditionally, "doing" assumes one is acting to achieve some desired result: you do the taxes to appease the government; you do the physical therapy to mitigate your back pain; you do the cooking because you figure it'll be fun.
Definitionally, doing nothing is the exact opposite. To “do nothing” literally means that your desire is to achieve nothing in particular. That is, doing nothing means acting without attaching to any outcome.
With that understanding, you can technically be "doing nothing" while folding laundry, picking up the kids from school, or writing a book report. So long as you are emptied of all calculation and clinging, you can act in the world without being lost in the thought of it.
{Soul}
Consider snapping your fingers and manifesting your ideal life. Unlimited food. Infinite money. Perfect body. Freedom from work. Travel anywhere. Everyone admires you.
This scenario seems great at first, but becomes increasingly unsettling the more you meditate upon it.
Sure…avoiding starvation, living creatively, and feeling loved are all undeniably great things, and what the future hopefully holds more of. But still…how many roller coasters, orgies, words of affirmation, countries visited, burgers, pounds of cocaine, Lamborghinis, olympic medals, and millions of dollars could anyone handle before existential doubt creeps in? When will enough be enough? Life must be more than chasing hits of dopamine into the grave, no?
Hopefully you see the irony. Our “ideal” lives are often capitalistic exaggerations, and yet how many of us would consider our current problems instantly solved if we had just one more thing. Or even just half of one more thing?
If the goal is contentment, why not just feel it now? Why wait for the world to catch up with your ever-growing demands before you give yourself permission to be satisfied with what is already Here?
May 4, 2025
Previous
Not Yet Available
Next
