Time to Think

What is this life if full of care
We have no time to stand and stare
– WH Davies

“The most important thing you need to do… is to have big chunks of time during the day when all you’re doing is thinking.”
(Barack Obama in conversation with British conservative party leader David Cameron.)

But how do you do that? Some ideas to be found here.

They include:

• only work when you’re being paid to work
• no dining “al desko'” (how’s that for an infelicitous expression?)
• step out for a walk
• get off the bus earlier and walk
• find your own personal oasis for thought
• have a prop to hand like a cup of tea and a biscuit
• give yourself less to think about (switch off the phone/ close your eyes)

My personal favorite: Cultivate the habit of mental drift and intellectual idleness. Stand or sit and stare in silence. After all – thinking is what makes us human. And – if we don’t give ourselves thinking breaks then the thinking breaks will break us through lack of concentration and the kinds of mistakes that are not the fun and constructive sort.

And, if we can’t do it for ourselves can we at least help out with the over scheduled child? According to this article in yesterday’s NYTimes even summer camp leaves no time unfilled.

That familiar couplet on time to think comes from Welsh poet WH Davies – the original supertramp. He lost a leg jumping a train in Canada and regarded arrests for vagrancy as an occupational hazard and an opportunity to take a break.

For all this alleged idleness, Davies nevertheless managed to get himself no less than seven portraits in the London’s National Portrait Gallery, Maybe it was all that standing still that made the artists’ job easier.

Featured image by Emma Van Sant