According to Joyce Carol Oates, the award-winning and prolific writer of fiction, distraction is the biggest enemy of creativity. David McCullough, the award-winning and prolific writer of history, in 2012 did a 60 Minutes interview in which he explains how he writes. He takes the viewer into his "world headquarters," an 8' x 12' cabin on Martha's Vineyard containing his manual typewriter. Thomas Edison, the award-winning and prolific inventor, was so maniacally focused that his wife, having not seen him in four or five days, would pay a visit to his shop to coerce him into a bath, a shave, and a change of clothes. He considered eating and sleeping a distraction and spent a minimum of time on either.
All of this to say that we live in a world of distraction. You might find, as I have, that in peaceful moments your mind is able to go places it otherwise wouldn't. You may find that instead of being entertained from the outside, you are engrossed in thought from the inside.
I thought of this as I was reading on the back porch this morning, listening to the birds, the breeze, and the distant ever-present lawn mower.
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