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Like a Cow Chewing Grass Like a Cow Chewing Grass
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“The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters”, 1797–1798, Francisco Goya, Museo Nacional del Prado (Madrid)
Wellbeing

Like a Cow Chewing Grass

Breaking Free From Rumination
Jowita Kiwnik Pargana
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Jowita Kiwnik Pargana:
was born in Gdańsk. She is a psychologist and sociologist. She used to work as a reporter for the “Gazeta Wyborcza” daily in Gdańsk. For seven years, she was based in Brussels, where she worked with the Polish Press Agency (PAP). Currently, she is the EU correspondent for the Polish office of “Deutsche Welle” and a contributor to PAP Technologies. She graduated from the Polish School of Reportage.

The problem is, that there is simply no answer to questions such as ‘Why me?’ And finding the answer, even if it was possible, wouldn’t change anything.

“Annie and I have split up and I’m still thinking about it. Life flashes before my eyes like in a movie and I am trying to find the moment where everything went wrong. Just one year ago we were so in love. No, I’m not a gloomy person, I don’t get depressed easily, I was a rather happy kid,” says the hero of Woody Allen’s Annie Hall, Alvy Singer (played by Woody Allen), before, frame-by-frame, analysing his relationship with the eponymous Annie.

People with a tendency to ruminate analyse the events of their lives exactly in this manner – meticulously and step-by-step. For example, C. hasn’t slept for two years, since she left her job. While she left at her own request, the day after she resigned, she began to regret her decision. Ever since, she cannot fall asleep because she keeps thinking of, dreaming of, and waking up thinking of her former work.

She is tormented: “It was a massive mistake, I don’t understand what came

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Jowita Kiwnik Pargana:
was born in Gdańsk. She is a psychologist and sociologist. She used to work as a reporter for the “Gazeta Wyborcza” daily in Gdańsk. For seven years, she was based in Brussels, where she worked with the Polish Press Agency (PAP). Currently, she is the EU correspondent for the Polish office of “Deutsche Welle” and a contributor to PAP Technologies. She graduated from the Polish School of Reportage.
Translation: Joanna Figiel
Publish date: 10.12.2019

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A long, long time ago, snow would fall one day, covering the world with a fluffy eiderdown, and it would go silent. In the Anthropocene, such luxury is just a matter of dreams. That’s why we sent our reporter in search of silence.

Beyond Łódź, the forest seems to be getting denser. Pines and birches flickering outside the window give licence to break away from my co-passengers’ blabbing. It was high time to go away in search of silence and distance: tension in my relationship, tension in the country, tension all over our planet. So I look for salvation where silence is one of the basic rules of life – in the Camaldolese nunnery in Złoczew.

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