MY BLOGS

Jez's Blog


The Strange Story of How I Found a New Band


A Salute to My Influences


Celebrating Our Differences


Daring to Use the Four-Letter Word


What Is The Real Olympian Spirit?


Watching The Olympics Opening Ceremony


How Good Service Turned into a Speed Trip


Blurring the Line Between Fact and Fiction


How Creativity Keeps Moving On


How an Artist in the Kitchen Revealed my Inner 'Foody'


Synchronicity - an Everyday Sort of Magic


Does This Make You Laugh?


The Magic of Storytelling


How Good Design Serves the User


Learning to Love Creative Blocks


Creating The CLUB


How a Kiss Missed Its Target at a Posh Do


How Bob Dylan refused the Box labelled ‘Protest Singer’


The ‘Get Back in Your Box’ Syndrome


What’s all the fuss about?


Reflections on Learning and Teaching


The Third in my Triptych of Entries about Thought


Happily disconnected in Cornwall


The Best Way to Sell is to Do Something Well


Life is Good


Zen & the Art of Birdwatching

SEARCHING FOR THE THOUGHTLESS ZONE
Happily disconnected in Cornwall

It’s been a very busy period recently leading up to the launch of The CLUB and I’ve taken a week off to spend at our place by the sea in southwest England. I like to work hard and use my brain to hit work targets but I also enjoy stepping out of that whole construct of future goals and going into neutral gear where thinking can quieten down a bit. The idea was that I’d get connected to the internet down here so I can do just a bit of work every now and then. However, having bought a dongle to give me mobile internet connection, I found that my place happens to be in a hole where there is no reception. So not only do I get a break from work thoughts, I also have a break from all the thoughts that are carried in the air on the phone networks!

 

But looking around me I realise that its not that easy to escape thought. Nearly everything I can see once began as a thought - the laptop, table, carpet, window frame, glass – the list is endless. Even when I gaze out of the window I can continue this game - the wall, a path, a chimney, a fence, a telephone wire - they all began as a thought in the head of a designer, an inventor, a scientist, a plasterer or an artist etc.

 

When I look into my neighbour's garden there are hedges, plants, flowers; but even these have been cultivated, packaged, bought and then placed and tended by thought processes. It's only when my eyes look further out beyond the harbour wall to the sea and up to the sky that I am looking at things which have not been created or touched by man’s mind. Maybe this is why it is so relaxing to be away from cities and out in nature, because we can finally enter the thoughtless zone.

 

(See Zen & the Art of Bird Watching for more on this theme)

 

April 14th 2011

Sea

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