Lost In Thought

"Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves." Henry David Thoreau

Do you ever allow yourself to just get lost in thought?

Without a smart phone in hand to scroll on?

My teachers always discouraged getting lost in thought, they dismissed it as idle daydreaming and would complain to my Mother at parent-teacher conferences that Elliott was too much of a daydreamer and that I always had my head in the clouds or was gazing out windows when I should have been focusing on math. There were times at school, during recess, where I would choose to sit under a tree and just observe or get lost in my thoughts to playing tag or seeing who could jump the highest from the swings. There was something about sitting between the roots with my back against the bark of a tree that calmed me down when I felt anxious.

I love to get lost in my thoughts.

In a system that thrives on production and productivity to move out of utilitarianism to just sit and think for thoughts sake is a radical act. It is to move out of consumption into one of contemplation. It’s what Michael Foucault terms “cultural combat.” We live in a culture where labor and accomplishments are our essence, our reason for being is working and achieving. What is often the first question that is asked of a stranger at a party, “What do you do for a living?”

I wanted to move beyond surfaces and appearances, beyond what can be bought and sold in the marketplace and just be.

After exploring the charming town of Black Mountain, I drove to nearby Tomahawk Lake. I spotted a bench underneath a tree right by the water. Thankfully, no one was sitting on it and I quickly made my way to enjoy some shade on hot summer’s day.

Sitting on that bench, I lost myself in the splendor of my setting. There was a soft breeze. Swifts darting about. Canada geese and wood ducks leisurely made their way along the surface of the lake. Some old men were sailing their remote control sailboats around some buoys and it reminded me of Stuart Little.

I sat there in a state of non-doing.

Why?

I didn’t want to, as the Roman satirist Juvenal expressed, lose “the reasons to live for the sake of staying alive.”