By Mo Edjlali, Founder of Mindful Leader; Author, Open MBSR
Apparently, staring at a wall is now a thing. And people are watching other people do it. Millions of them. As someone who's spent years trying to convince people to meditate, I'm not sure whether to celebrate or cry.
I've been concerned for some time about declining interest in conventional mindfulness programs, particularly among younger people. Walk into most mindfulness training programs, and you'll find a decidedly middle-aged crowd. For all our talk about making mindfulness accessible, something about what we're offering doesn't resonate with the next generation.
So when I came across a young YouTuber getting millions of views for staring at a wall, I was fascinated. And he's not alone. Earlier this year, People magazine reported on a growing TikTok trend called "intentional boredom," with Gen Z creators filming themselves doing absolutely nothing. No phones, no music, no distractions. Some of these videos are attracting millions of views.
The YouTuber's name is Lucas, and he decided to spend five days dramatically reducing digital distractions, doing one thing at a time, and taking breaks by staring at a blank wall. No meditation app. No spiritual teacher. No Tibetan singing bowls. Just a guy and a wall.
Here are four things I think the mindfulness field can learn from this unlikely experiment.
1. Silence Is a Remarkable Teacher
Lucas begins his experiment hoping to improve his focus at work. He eliminates nonessential screen time, stops listening to podcasts and music throughout the day, and deliberately sets aside time to sit and stare at his wall. Initially, he finds it awkward. He doesn't know what he's supposed to think about or whether he's doing it correctly. Sound familiar?
My favorite observation comes when he realizes that removing stimulation doesn't necessarily make life blissful. It creates what he calls a "quieter baseline." Sometimes things are enjoyable. Sometimes they're boring. He's simply more available to experience whatever is happening.
That's a remarkably mature insight into mindfulness from someone who isn’t even trying to practice it.
And there's something important about the fact that Lucas actually sat down and practiced. He didn't merely try to be more mindful while going about his day. He made time, sat with the discomfort, and kept showing up. That's the discipline of formal practice, even if he didn't call it meditation or follow a conventional technique.
I love silence. I often drive without music or podcasts, and when I meditate, I generally prefer silence or natural sounds. But silence doesn't always feel peaceful. Sometimes it's uncomfortable, restless, or just plain boring. And that's okay.
What interests me is what happens when we remove the constant interference. No algorithm deciding what deserves our attention. No influencer selling us a better life. No teacher telling us what our experience should mean.
Silence doesn't guarantee wisdom or enlightenment. But it creates room for us to discover things for ourselves. And perhaps we've underestimated just how powerful a teacher that can be.
2. He Went Looking for Productivity and Rediscovered His Life
As the week progresses, Lucas reports that his concentration improves and he makes progress on a difficult work project, but the changes outside work are arguably more revealing.
He starts playing the drums again, enjoys walking with his wife, and feels more engaged in ordinary conversations. His wife even notices that the atmosphere at home seems calmer. He has more room in his life, not just more time to get things done.
He also begins appreciating what he calls the "in-between" moments: waiting in line, driving without music, taking a break without reaching for his phone. Those familiar with Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) will recognize this as informal mindfulness practice. But these ordinary moments weren't a substitute for his structured periods of sitting quietly. Both were part of his experiment.
Of course, this is one person's experience, not a structured scientific experiment. He changed several habits simultaneously, so we can't know how much of the improvement came specifically from staring at walls.
Still, there's an interesting irony here. Much of the mindfulness industry's growth has come from selling meditation as a way to reduce stress, sharpen focus, and improve productivity. We've made a compelling business case for mindfulness, particularly in the workplace.
But what if productivity is among the least interesting things mindfulness has to offer?
Lucas wanted to become better at his job. Along the way, he seemed to become more available for his own life. Perhaps there's something worth reconsidering about how we introduce and promote mindfulness, especially to younger generations.
3. We've Made Meditation Unnecessarily Complicated
Here's what troubles me. We've built an elaborate industry around something that, at its foundation, can be remarkably simple. Expensive teacher training programs, certifications, retreats, spiritual hierarchies, celebrity meditation gurus, and apps packed with thousands of guided meditations, often promising a better version of yourself.
Some meditation teachers charge hundreds of dollars an hour, and we've created an entire market around listening to someone tell us how to experience our own minds.
I'm not opposed to instruction. I've spent years developing mindfulness education programs and training teachers. Good teaching matters. But I increasingly wonder whether we've confused the complexity of our industry with the complexity of the practice itself.
In a previous article, Please Shut Up: Your Guided Meditations Are Doing Harm, I argued that much of what passes for meditation guidance creates dependency rather than independence. A good meditation teacher should be trying to make themselves unnecessary. Teach a simple technique, use clear and unobtrusive guidance, and gradually reduce the talking until people can practice on their own.
Instead, we've normalized elaborate guided experiences where the teacher continuously interprets, reassures, inspires, and sometimes subtly manipulates what practitioners are supposed to feel. And the more elaborate the experience, the more indispensable the teacher can appear.
For someone desperately seeking relief or meaning, it's not difficult to see how this can develop into something troubling: followers rather than students, charismatic authority rather than independent inquiry, and spiritual communities where questioning the teacher or lineage becomes suspect. I'm not suggesting every teacher or meditation app operates this way, but the incentives are worth examining.
If a teacher's success depends on having followers, how motivated are they to produce independent practitioners?
4. Maybe We Need Fewer Gurus and More Communities
There's one more thing that staring at walls doesn't solve. Doing nothing, sitting quietly, or meditating alone can be surprisingly difficult. Doing it regularly is harder still. And that's where I think we've missed an extraordinary opportunity.
What if, instead of building ever more sophisticated systems for delivering meditation content, we all concentrated on helping people practice together? Imagine simple practices with minimal instruction, accessible to anyone. Small groups that organize themselves, support one another, and don't require a charismatic teacher at the center.
Doing hard things is often easier with other people. We don't necessarily need someone telling us what to experience, but having others who show up, practice alongside us, and help us stay committed can make an enormous difference.
I'd like mindfulness to become something closer to a public good. Not a luxury available primarily to people who can afford expensive programs or happen to work for a company with generous wellness benefits. Not another spirituality business built around a celebrated personality. Something ordinary people can learn, share, and sustain together.
The fact that younger people are experimenting with silence without calling it mindfulness should give our field something to think about. Perhaps they're not rejecting what mindfulness has to offer. Perhaps they're simply uninterested in the elaborate packaging we've built around it.
And maybe they're onto something.
We've spent decades building a mindfulness industry, and a young guy on YouTube reminds us that sometimes all you really need is a wall.
This is part of our Wackfulness Series: a thoughtful critique of the mindfulness field.
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