The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere (TED Books)

seemed our greatest luxury; nowadays it’s often freedom from information, the chance to sit still, that feels like the ultimate prize.

the art of sitting still (in other words, clearing the head and stilling the emotions)—and as I observed the sense of attention, kindness, and even delight that seemed to arise out of his life of going nowhere—I

Sitting still as a way of falling in love with the world and everything in it; I’d seldom thought of it like that. Going nowhere as a way of cutting through the noise and finding fresh time and energy to share with others;

So often I see vacations as just a way to direct my work habits and relentlessness toward mapping out schedules and organizing train tickets, less concerned with the quality of my time than the quantity. A flight for me had always been a chance to catch up on job-related reading, to see movies I’d never been tempted to see when they were playing at

Abraham Joshua Heschel, the great Jewish theologian of the last century, had it, “a cathedral in time rather than in space”; the one day a week we take off becomes a vast empty space through which we can wander, without agenda, as

Going nowhere, as Cohen had shown me, is not about austerity so much as about coming closer to one’s senses.

In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still. You can go on vacation to Paris or Hawaii or New Orleans three months from now, and you’ll have a tr

It’s only by taking myself away from clutter and distraction that I can begin to hear something out of earshot and recall that listening is much more invigorating than giving voice to all the thoughts and prejudices that anyway keep me company twenty-four hours a day. And it’s only by going nowhere—by sitting still or letting my mind relax—that I f

But what I discovered, almost instantly, was that as soon as I was in one place, undistracted, the world lit up and I was as happy as when I forgot about myself. Heaven is the place where you think of nowhere else. It