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