An Instabrain Full of Snapthoughts

When I was a child I developed what is now considered the rather eccentric habit of thinking. Just thinking. I would sometimes sit and stare out the window with my chin resting in the palm of my hand.

I would also think while walking places in my suburban New Jersey neighborhood: crunching my way through the orange-red, fallen leaves in autumn; sloshing through and squinting at the mushy, bright snow in winter; and sneezing my way past undulating, freshly mown lawns in spring and summer. I have such vivid memories of how quiet snowfall is and how sharp the scent of cut grass.

These habits have carried over, manifesting themselves in different ways. I make my 20-minute drive to and from work each day without turning on music, and I go on my exercise runs most of the time without the wires of any electronic device sticking out of my ears. If I'm home alone, I never turn on the TV. (I will admit part of the reason for this is that I stopped knowing how to operate the remote about three entertainment systems ago. But there is definitely an element of protest involved in my ignorance.)

I was prompted to reflect on this strange habit of quiet reflection that I enjoy when I read a Q&A in the business section of The New York Times recently. They have a feature called "Corner Office," in which they interview a seriously attired CEO who discusses his or her methods of success. Something about the man's picture pulled me in this time; his eyes had a rather un-CEO-like gentleness about them. Daniel Lubetzky has an interesting story (his father was a Holocaust survivor who immigrated to Mexico), but what I found most interesting was his answer to the last question of the interview: "What career advice would you give to a class of graduating seniors?" His answer is too long for Instagram, Twitter or Snapchat, but I'm hoping you'll read the whole thing here.

The most important is to make sure that you talk to yourself, that you think hard about what's important to you and gives you meaning. When I was 19 and walking between classes, I didn't have a phone, so my brain would take me in different directions. And it's so healthy and important to be thinking, "Oh, I could have done that better." Or, "What about this idea?" But nowadays, we're on our iPhones all the time, and you don't have time to talk with yourself, to analyze.

It's very important for people to know what gives them meaning. But it's hard for people to figure out if you're not connecting with yourself and taking the time to just be introspective and daydream.

Daydreaming is outlawed in the dystopian science-fiction novel Fahrenheit 451, in which everyone is forced to speed on the highways, lulled into watching giant TV screens filled with a fake family, and, of course, required to destroy all their books (or the "firemen" will do it for them). But citizens are also viewed as suspicious and subversive if they just want to take a slow stroll. It's amazing how prescient Ray Bradbury and the other early sci-fi writers were. While our government is not the one that's speeding us up in order to dumb us down, it is still happening as we do it to ourselves.

Just think about that.