I am totally… with all certainty, not one of those people who put this grey mcfucker on a pedestal, but to say that he's not interesting would be a lie up the ass for me. I got creative, and wrote a thingy out about this grey dude on his self-training of his powers in his earlier years, like when he was prone to separating oceans every time he sneezes.

Okay, he doesn't actually do that nor does he sneeze, I'm joking.

Here is a short-sorta drabble of Jiren doing what he now does best; meditating and focusing, except poorly.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

If a rock held no shape, it would be fair to say that lifting its intangible edges would be difficult. As it would graze your hands, its formless body would just pour right out of your palms like water, leaving your hands near empty. But a rock isn't like that; it has shape, its weight is tangible upon two hands, you can feel its textured surface under your fingertips and palms. This rock in front of him had a heavy amount of cleavage and jagged edges, this rock was very much tangible, solid and feasibly gripped.

But this rock would not move, or rather would not move correctly.

Jiren had his eyes closed, and he sat just a few leg paces away from said rock that stared back at him with no eyes. His form was relaxed, his posture was poised, and he was focusing on keeping his kinetic attention on this rock. He only wanted to move it, that's all he wanted to do, just a simple lift and transition from its position to… somewhere else. The grey didn't know or care of how long he's been in this meadow, far away from any homes or structures for a reason, but whenever he would try to move it, the rock would shake. It would correspond with his energetic response, comply for only a moment, before exploding into a bunch of little pieces.

This rock was once twice his height, and now it barely passed his knees when he stood up, and the other pieces were away from it after they had been broken apart.

Jiren wasn't doing this because he lacks telekinetic ability; no, he was trying to minimize his power output. Everything he did replied on the use of energy, the same energy that he could feel travelling across his crown all the way down to his soles, and because of the fact that he has exacted a high vibration overall, he's got to the point where he deliberately has to work on suppressing it.

His grey brows furrowed, before relaxing again. He was measuring the rock's weight against his mind, and since it was getting smaller, it would get harder to better execute the right kind of energy without breaking the stupid thing. Could he find another boulder to practice this on? Yes…

But he didn't feel like getting up right now.

Once again, the rock tittered against the ground. He steadied his output, focusing only a wee bit of that energy into the rock, and the rock made a noise when it was lifted off the ground very slowly. His palms didn't tense, everything he did came from his head; the rock was now a good two inches off the ground, and he was beginning to direct it away from where it was. Jiren could feel it, it was starting to actually work. His chest rose as he exhaled slowly, only to hear a very faint crack resound from in front of him.

And then the rock broke again, into tinier less displaced pieces.

At this point, the grey slowly opened his eyes with a straight face, and then he plainly blinked. This was the problem with his abilities; he has gotten so good at mastering every system in his body, that he has to dumb it down in order to keep from breaking things. His vessel wasn't going to work and accommodate with the rest of the world if he can't even suppress his energy to a substantial point. Forget about numbers, when you can coerce and direct energy in your body, it becomes immeasurable. He has been trying many methods in order to perfect this, and this tedious primitive rock-moving was one of them...

How many times has he attempted this? A couple hundred, a few hundred? For any normal person, that repetition is way past the cutoff for insanity.

He tried again, he leaned forward to grab one of the pieces that were closest to where he was. This was way too small, it was the same size as his hand, he needed a bigger piece. Jiren took a deep breath, grounding himself before he slowly got up, teleported, and took hold of a piece that was just a bit bigger than his forearm. He didn't even bother kneeling to put it down anymore, he just dropped it to the ground and went to sit in front of it again. He kept his position the same way, holding his hands in the same circular energy-cycling gesture in front of his lap, and closing his eyes.

Focus.

Such a simple training method couldn't be so hard for someone who isn't teeming with immense power. He would have kept his eyes open so he could see where the rock was going, but if he did look at it he would make the rock explode.

Don't… overwhelm it.

He centralized the spot for movement, resting right at the core of the rock's shape, and then focused below that spot to where the grassy ground was. This was a bit more tedious and would've made the rock more prone to breaking, but he had to do it this way for such a small object.

Keep… your focus.

He only had to tell himself that once for now, the forearm-long rock was lifted up much slower than its bigger precursor. It was way too small to exact tiny points of energy. It started to shake, and not in a good way; this shaking could be felt in Jiren's mind and it was so close to breaking-

Crack… Crack, pieces of the rock were now separated but still being held together with his mind.

Not too much focus!- if he can't lift one small rock, why not lift a bunch of smaller rocks together at the same time? It's not that simple, he was trying to center it on one piece and ended up working with smaller pieces…That are continuing to break under his metaphysical grasp.

Are you kidding me? He opened his black eyes again, and stared at the small bits of rock floating in midair. Jiren would keep his eyes open, at this point it won't make a difference; they're still going to freaking break.

He just dropped the entire mass, and then sighed. He just easily just throw a tree across some body of water without even breaking a thought, yet he wasn't able to move a rock from one place to another without both staining the meadow, and making the rock explode. Jiren did this multiple times again until at one point, and three broken-down boulders later, he finally lifted a rock that barely passed the length of his foot above the ground, displacing its first location without destroying it by accident.

It took at least a tedious few minutes before the rock was finally placed onto the ground, and when it was Jiren calmly opened his eyes, and let out an exhale that's been waiting to come out. The grey's hands went to his knees, as he looked around the entire premise. The grass looked beautiful, but scattered upon the area are many bits and pieces of former boulders, littering the ground in various shapes and sizes. He wasn't done; he had just got past the hurdle of actually executing such an innocuous feat, now he must keep doing this over and over again until he gets it right, and so that he can stop breaking a bunch of walls by accidentally closing a door too hard.

With a really slow blink, Jiren closed his eyes again; his strength has to be one of the most annoying things in his life, sometimes.

:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:-:

None of this is canon, obviously. It was a fun musing I thought of while commuting home lol.