Fewer Voices
With my new diet and exercise regime, I am doing a lot of walking lately. The fact that it’s a beautiful time of year and I live on the coast makes it fairly easy to do this.
My usual habit when walking or driving is to listen to podcasts, but I am starting to find myself running out of new things to listen to, what with the extra time spent out. One option is to go find some more podcasts to listen to, but I’m starting to think there is a better one: Listen to fewer podcasts.
I’m so accustomed to hearing a perpetual stream of interesting people saying interesting things, that I think I might have lost touch with my own thoughts. On a recent long drive I accidentally started playing music rather than podcasts, and was surprised to notice how peaceful it was to drive without listening to people talk. My mind went to a whole new place, filling the vacuum with original thoughts, and I had all sorts of fun and interesting ideas in a way I haven’t for ages.
So from now on I’m going to try to make sure that I reserve for myself some proper thinking time, where I let my mind wander instead of perpetually distracting it with everyone else’s ideas. It doesn’t mean I’m magically going to get more work done, but it does make random inspiration far more likely.
