Swapping motion for stillness. Chatter for calm.

Posted on by Live & Learn

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Frank Bruni, NY Times: A Quiet Cheer For Solitude:

  • …Take more time away. Spend more time alone. Trade the speechifying for solitude, which no longer gets anything close to the veneration it’s due, not just in politics but across many walks of life.
  • It’s in solitude that much of the sharpest thinking is done and many of the best ideas are hatched. We know this intuitively and from experience, yet solitude is often cast as an archaic luxury and indulgent oddity, inferior to a spirited discussion and certainly to a leadership conference…”
  • The calendar of a senior executive or public official is defined by meeting after meeting upon meeting. There’s no comparable premium on solitary pauses, on impregnable periods for contemplation, and a person who insists on them attracts a derogatory vocabulary: loner, loafer, recluse, aloof, eccentric, withdrawn.
  • “We live in the new groupthink — there’s a shared belief that creativity and productivity must be a collaborative experience, and solitude has fallen out of fashion,” Susan Cain, the author of the 2012 best seller “Quiet,” told me. But, she added, “There’s so much research that flies in the face of this.”
  • Cain’s book focuses on introverts, making the case that they have a kind of intellectual advantage. And their edge stems largely from greater amounts of solitude, from the degree to which they’ve swapped motion for stillness, chatter for calm. They’ve carved out space for reflection that’s sustained and deep.
  • This isn’t necessarily a matter of being unplugged, of ditching the hyper-connectedness of our digital lives. It’s a matter of ditching and silencing the crowd…

Read Bruni’s worthy full article here: A Quiet Cheer For Solitude:

  • Photograph: Thank you Brenda @ Space2Live
  • Related Post: I Share @ Tiny Lessons Blog

 

 

20 thoughts on “Swapping motion for stillness. Chatter for calm.”

  1. Best moment in my day – the quiet of the early morning, the pups fed and dozing. And me, enjoying the solitude and my coffee. Thinking big thoughts? Not today – just enjoying.

  2. WMS. The first hour of my day is “me time” — there’s no better way to start the day than sitting quietly and listening to the world begin to stir. Puts everything in perspective, one songbird’s trill at a time. And yes, HAPPY FATHER’S DAY, pal! 🙂

  3. Echoing the above…..my treks with my dog are my own first thing in the morning. No chatter, no music. Just the two of us left to our thoughts. Happy Father’s Day!

  5. i treasure every moment of quiet and peaceful solitude. and i much prefer a conversation with one person over ‘working a room.’

  6. Happy Father’s Day! I loved this. Early morning is my favorite quiet time of day.

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