Ryan Holiday’s latest post, ‘Meditative Isolation’ is, as usual, an interesting and thought-provoking piece. But as I read it, I couldn’t help but feel that the topic he was addressing was one I felt very familiar with. And then I remembered, back in December, I posted this brief commentary on thinking in the shower.

So, while I am tempted to say ‘well, I reckon this proves that great minds think alike’ and leave the issue at that, this topic is one of increasing pertinence in society today. We have so much interruption and interaction in our lives, we simply do not give our minds the opportunity to wander — and as professional blogger Michael Graham points out, even when given scant moments of free time, we instead seek out rapidly-passing interests which dominate our lives.  A generation has been produced that is more plugged-in and wired-up than ever before, with access stores of information expanding a rate far faster than we could ever consume, but I fear that these advancements will be meaningless if we can never find the isolation to take it all in and build on what we are learning.  How can we, collectively, continue to prosume when we hardly have the chance to comprehend what we consume?

Finding those moments of silence all boils down to courage and perseverance — like Ryan says, to get that free time, “[y]ou have to demand it, steal it, fight for it,” but then once you have it, you need the willpower to not give in and let go.