–

This slim volume by travel writer Pico Iyer is about the adventure of going within instead of going out and about. As someone who has traveled more in this year than ever in my life, I love the new views, but I treasure too the corresponding balance of  quiet time, spent in stillness and contemplation.

This is increasingly important in this fast paced, busy world. Of no religious affiliation himself, the author interviews Leonard Cohen, who lived as a monk for most of his life. “Going nowhere, a Cohen described it, was the grand adventure that makes sense of everywhere else. ”

After interviewing Cohen, the author remarks, that “not many years ago, it was access to information and movement that seemed our greatest luxury; nowadays it’s often freedom from information, the chance to sit still, that feels like the ultimate prize. Going nowhere, as Cohen had shown me, is not about austerity so much as about coming closer to one’s senses… Going nowhere isn’t about turning your back on the world; it’s about stepping away now and then so that you can see the world more clearly and love it more deeply.”

Here are some other bits I flagged to share with you:

• “After a thirty year study of time diaries, two sociologists found that Americans were actually working fewer hours than we did in the 1960’s but we feel as if we are working more. We have the sense, too often, of running at top speed and never being able to catch up.”
• “So much of our lives takes place in our heads–in memory or imagination, in speculation or interpretation– that sometimes I feel that I can best change my life by changing the way I look at it.”
• William James said, ‘The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.'”
• “It’s the perspectives we choose–not the places we visit– that ultimately tells us where we stand.”
• “At some point horizontal trips in the world can’t compensate for the need to go deep into somewhere challenging and unexpected. Movement makes richest sense when set within a frame of stillness.”
• “I discovered 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.”
• “Simplifying one’s life to extract its quintessence is the most rewarding of all the pursuits I have ever undertaken.”
• “Flight is just a brief retreat in the sky. There is nothing you can do so it is really quite liberating.”

I liked The Art of Stillness and think you might as well. I give it 4 stars. It might be a good gift book for a busy person you know.

–