Instead of Scrolling, Literally Just Stare at a Wall (My Experience)

The subject stares at a wall, timelapse rendering minutes and hours to mere seconds.

The Wallmaxxing Project plays with time & attention. Replacing doomscrolling with literally staring at a wall forces a value comparison: which is more worthwhile—one hour of scrolling or one hour of staring at a wall?

The medium—a series of 21 youtube shorts over the course of 21 days—adds another layer to the project. The humble Shorts Scroller, in the midst of their own Scroll Hole, is confronted with a Man confronting the Wall. The absurdity of this moment is a sort of koan. For 20-some odd seconds, the scroller’s life becomes an act of watching someone else do the most mundane act possible.

The secret unreasonable hope tucked within this moment is prompting a reflection: “I just spent 20 seconds of my one and only life watching a timelapse of this unemployed mf just staring at a wall,” snapping the viewer out of the scroll hole and gently escorting them back to their life in meatspace.

The work’s slogan, “F it, we wall”, carries contradictory meanings: the air of living life with gusto & acting in a bold manner (as in “F it, we ball”); yet it applies this liveliness to the most mundane possible use of time. The hope is to flip the script, highlighting the quiet glee & inherent value of mundane & unsexy yet deeply restorative and nourishing acts.

Cuckfucius here—welcome back to the Cyber Cultivators Collective. With that pretentious ass artSlop hooey out of the way, here’s what I learned from taking on this exceedingly neurotypical endeavor:

The wall does not succ my vril nor does it siphon my jing. In fact, the wall does the opposite; the wall is a jingMaxxer’s best friend. The wall says “ganbatte, anon” to my brain while it does all the background processing it never has a chance to do during my normal suppressMaxxed && scrollcelled chungus life.

This comes into high contrast when considering the Jing Vampire that lives inside my pocket, and the life force it consumes to maintain its perverse, unholy existence. Of the boons that arose from these 21 days, probably 70% or more came from abstaining from The Rectangle, rather than directly from the wall itself.

I wish I could say I feel completely recharged after some good wallMaxxing, but sometimes the wall is hard. Sometimes it is inscrutable. Sometimes it is blank.

There’s a little goblin, naked and wretched and sniveling that lives inside my heart that was convinced that I would become Famous over the course of this project. However, staring at a wall is shit content, no matter how based the Art Hoe writeup may make it sound. The project did not garner undying adoration from the masses. The solace here is that this was not the main intent of the project.

On day 11, I was just about ready to wrap up this project. It was starting to feel like a drawn-out side quest. The videos took too long to edit.

In my darkest hour, a Hero appeared, reaching forth to offer a helping hand:

This was completely outside of my calculations. The world opened up, suddenly it was not just me and the wall. It was me, the wall, Samarvyom, and his wall. Heaven is other people.

With Samarvyom at my side, my will reignited. Day 10 had been when I’d first tasted a real drop of the forbidden Juice that the wall had to offer. I steeled myself and steadied my vision—I would at least see Samarvyom through to HIS day 10.

The only thing better than wallmaxxing, is sharing the boons of the Wall with a trusted nakama. One of the realest lessons from this whole thing is this:

A helpful friend can bathe even the most mundane act in a warm glow of whimsy.

For 21 days, I woke up and the first things on my mind were:

1. I need to schedule 20min - 1hr to stare at the wall

2. I need to schedule an additional 30min - 1hr to edit the video

There’s a certain absurdity to having the number one priority in my day be staring at a wall. Staring at a wall is absolutely a worthwhile use of time, even more worthwhile than doomscrolling, yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was scheduling in a waste of time.

I felt like I was pre-loading my wasted time for the whole day, before the day even began.

This was deeply intriguing. I’ve never set out to purposefully waste time before. Time wastes have always been an unfortunate byproduct, an aberration in a day meant for continuous flowing productivity. But now they became the Main Event. The thing around which all other tasks had to orbit.

This carried a genuine sense of “well, I already scheduled my wasted time for today, so there’s no more time left to waste”. Whether by coincidence or causation, this period of Wallmaxxing ended up being unintuitively productive.

There’s something powerful and underexplored here, about scheduling “wasted time” in advance.

Wallmaxxing trades potency for ease. I showed up to the wall each day without prescription. I allowed myself to eat food with the wall at times, I could stretch, and even spent some Wallmaxxing sessions standing or bouncing on the balls of my feet.

The only real constraints were to face the wall, and not do other stuff. I could ponder at length, fidget around, etc. This was different from meditation in that my back didn’t have to be straight, I wasn’t trying to hold my focus on one thing, and so-on.

The lack of prescriptions felt much lighter, easier, and comforting in a way. It felt categorically different than meditation. Easier, more inviting, nourishing, but less potent, less engaging, less like “a real thing”.

Meditation is hard—it’s hard to focus on one thing at the exclusion of everything else. It’s hard to let thoughts just be, it’s hard to return to the breath, etc.

Wallmaxxing removed a lot of that pressure. Wallmaxxing isn’t hard. I zoned out sometimes. This simplicity was nice.

It’s really difficult to judge experiences like this. What’s the right metric? How can I tell how much of my attention span returned? What effect was the Wallmaxxing having on my body, mind, and spirit?

I couldn’t judge by thoughts; I already knew in my mind that Wallmaxxing is a potent form of cultivation.

I certainly couldn’t judge wholly by emotions; many days I showed up to the wall unready and unwilling, or left the wall filled with scorn and malaise, sometimes both.

Day 10 felt like the unlock, where my body caught on to the rhythm of the Wall and our little dance started to click. I was hyped up for the wall day 11, and then Samarvyom blessed us with his camaraderie—we were off to the races.

But that didn’t mean the rest of the days were easy; day 18 in particular I brought a veritable miasma of despair to the wall, but luckily the wall holds all.

Here I’d love to say something beautiful and moving about my actions and focus. Don’t get me wrong—during the Wallmaxxing both were dialed to the F’ing gills, despite the emotional fluctuations. I moved like an uncaged animal, bringing every heavy thing to the wall and yoinking its manifold boons.

This is the bind: Forbidden Juice is forbidden. I cannot give it to you. However, you can go and taste it for yourself; the wall remains infintely generous.

• the wall was really close to my face, it might have been even nicer to be able to gaze into the distance and let my eyes relax a bit

• i mostly sat during the wallmaxxing sessions, and i sit too much already

• day 6 i wallmaxxed outside, the neighbors could see me from their garden and i was just staring at a brick wall for one hour

When all is said and done, this project was a wonderful success. I will return to the wall with secrets and sorrows in the future.

I’ve incorporated wallmaxxing into daily life in the following way:

Going into the future, perhaps Walkmaxxing is the next frontier here. Fresh air in the lungs, eyes on the horizon, blood pumping, lymph nodes draining. I will not write about walkmaxxing, but there will be signs…

Also side note, many of y’all have expressed interest in joining one of the cultivation groups. The experiment so far is running wonderfully. Spots open up every month, and if you’d like to be notified by email when that happens, the form takes 15 seconds to fill out:

Cultivation Group Reserve Form

((previous & current group members, y’all are more than welcome to apply as well))

~

P.S. If you enjoyed reading the wallmaxxing account, you may enjoy reading about this time I went 77 days without consuming media:

OR perhaps this account of when I almost got Kundalini Psychosis would be more to your fancy:

P.P.S. This project is dedicated to Samarvyom and also Bodhidharma, the father of wallmaxxing. real ones know he’s got insane lore