I like to think.
I know you can think anywhere, and I know we’re always thinking. In the hallways of our minds there’s always a conversation going on about something.
Partly because of that, I like to be in smaller places.
Because the more faces I see, the more things enter my view, the more stimulus there is for enlarging that conversation beyond what I want it to be.
There is a natural tendency to think about whatever you’re looking at. Or listening to. And with more of everything, comes more noise. More thinking material.
Thoughts don’t ask permission to enter, they just appear.
You see, thinking isn’t just an automatic function for me, like breathing, or my heart beating. Thinking is important to me because I know where it leads. It leads to me talking about those thoughts, and me talking about those thoughts leads to me doing something about them.
That doing part is where a huge challenge comes in.
I can’t do everything I’m thinking about. Not only because thoughts exceed the speed of light, but also because many thoughts aren’t my cup of tea. I can’t be thinking and talking about things that aren’t for me. So I don’t like having all these thoughts that take up valuable energy and time, and which I can’t continue to further by word and action. These thoughts must be removed by force, by speaking something opposite to them.
So I like smaller places where I decide what I will see and hear, and therefore think about, speak, and act on.
Smaller cities are for me. Less buildings, less blocking my view of the natural world, less people, most of whom I’ll never be close to anyway.
I like people, don’t get me wrong. But there is a limit to how far our relationships go. Connection to one another is much deeper and meaningful when it is valued through substantial time commitments that are practiced daily and weekly.
I like to go visit large cities. I get this sense of wonder and awe as I walk the well-kept sidewalks and stare up at the dizzying heights of skyscrapers. I like to see the masses of people crossing streets and I enjoy walking through crowds of folks in the malls. It inspires me about potential and multiplication and opportunity and hope.
But the busyness of a large city tires me out if I’m there too long. It’s just too much to flood my brain with. I come away with enough thoughts to last me for quite a while. Among those thoughts are ones that are meaningful, that help me, that stir me to new encouragement. Among them are also those that waste my valuable energy as I must now remove them from my mind by force.
To work it out and set it in motion I return to my smaller place. The place I can control, where I can put thoughts in their proper place, decide what to keep, and what to discard. A place to launch from, and a place to return to. The aircraft carrier of my life.
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