Carve Space for Insight: Just Sit There

"Don't fall asleep. Don't meditate. Just sit there."

Lets get real - few of us are ever going to meditate. We heard it's good for us, we accept it might help us think more clearly. But it sounds, low-energy. How about some substitutes? Here's Don Reed:

"Say absolutely nothing. Say nothing. If you have to, write it on a little card 'Silent Treck,' as you're walking by people, just show it to 'em, they'll respect you and keep right on going. Go somewhere say nothing. Watch how much comes to you. I think it'll blow your mind...The other place where I get a lot of work done is in my car." 

-- Don Reed, Going Three Feet Past youtube

If we stop talking, and just listen and observe, the insight will come, right? Close. Don't say anything. Don't play music. And you know what, don't meditate either:

"Don't do anything. Um...don't do anything. Go home, sit on the couch and stare at the wall. For a long time. Don't put on music and don't talk to anybody and don't look at your phone...Don't fall asleep! Don't meditate...just sit there."

-- Tracy Letts, How to Live a Creative Life youtube

So don't talk, don't listen and don't read either:

"Focus is all about blocking stuff out. But once the brain is sufficiently focused, the cortex needs to relax in order to seek out the more remote association in the right hemisphere."

-- Jonah Lehrer, "The Eureka Hunt" newyorker

This work by AJ Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.