Thinking versus Doing
I recently read Alain de Botton’s very excellent How Proust Can Change Your Life. In it, he quotes Alan Watts - a forerunner in mindfulness - something along the lines of “you can’t read and be thinking about reading at the same time.”
The assertion has stuck in my head for a couple days now and I’ve made a game of checking in with myself on whether I’m thinking or doing. Now, if you think this is elementary, I recommend you give it a try.
So far I’ve noticed:
Doing doesn’t have to be perceptible. By focusing my attention on breathing or the sounds of my immediate surroundings, I’m doing something. Oftentimes, these “doings” can bring us out of our heads back into the realm of what-is.
I spend a lot of time rapidly switch back and forth between thinking and doing. If a meeting is not going the way I’d planned, I’d actually generate a bunch of sensations in my body rather than attempt to initiate a course-correct resulting in a lot of flickering between thinking and doing that goes on internally.
Recognizing expectations set out by thinking is also a powerful act of doing. Am I generating upset because as meeting moderator I want to reach the end of the agenda but attendees are spending too much time socializing? Are those expectations shared by the attendees?
Thinking can narrow our possible interactions with others. If we make a snap judgment as to whether someone might be of interest, we’re already limiting ways of making a connection. I’m playing with silently addressing each person I meet as "pilgrim” in my mind - a conscious doing - to see if it impacts how I relate to others.
Now that I’ve laid out my observations, I see that my definition of thinking is “semi-conscious guardrails that we’ve come to rely on” whereas doing is a “present act of reprogramming.”
Thoughts?