A desert is empty and barren. There is nothing to do, nothing to distract. Forgetting for a moment about survival, the desert is a place where one if forced to think inward, because there is nothing outward to distract or give focus to the mind.
The city is the opposite. Every time one opens the door, one is assaulted with things to do. This is where your friends are, who tap you to engage in various activities. This is a place filled with objects, a huge quantity of which are designed and placed for people to attend to. The mind is pulled outward. This effect has been compounded and multiplied in the past thirty years with the advent of personal computers, the internet, and most recently, the smartphone. At every moment of every day, the mind is pulled outward to a great number of external objects. One can go months or years without spending time merely with one’s self. A person can forget who she is, never having to spend time with herself. The prospect of spending time in one’s mind can even be unpleasant, dissatisfying, and painful. One must struggle to subdue to urge to find distraction.
It becomes more and more difficult to sit for long periods of time with only the rich contents of one’s mind to occupy the mind.
The mind’s content is, in a way, what the mind is focused on. When the mind is pulled toward external objects, the person is only half themselves. They become what they’re focused on.
In the desert, one needs to create things to attend to. The desert provokes one to create, to be active. This is work, and is often less pleasant than being passive: but in the desert, one isn’t given much choice for an alternative. The city allows one’s mind to be passive in the face of so many objects of entertainment and distraction.
In this city, I yearn for less distraction, for more time alone, divorced from the multitude of distractions that are constantly barraging themselves against my consciousness.
Natural Causes 