The lost art of thinking

Recently a friend visiting from Florida asked me to meet her at Dunkin’ Donuts, so I went at the appointed time but she was late. I received her text upon arrival, an apology that she had hit a snag and would be there in 30 minutes.

Thirty minutes! I panicked. What was I supposed to do for 30 whole minutes? I had brought no book, there was not enough time to squeeze in an errand, and it would make no sense to go home and come back again.

In a slightly passive-aggressive gesture to signal my displeasure, I took photos of the landscaping around the fast-food emporium and sent them to her with the text: “Discovering a whole new side of the Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot.” No response.

But the experience also made me realize I am in trouble: I have to have something to do to fill the time. I cannot endure having nothing to read or write or listen to, or to bake or buy or return, or some other “useful” task. I found myself utterly incapable of having nothing to do.

I thought of praying, but I like to combine my praying with a 2.8-mile walk at the local cemetery, not with loitering on a postage stamp–sized macadam lot where I reap no benefit to my body’s health. I thought of doing some thinking that I had meant to do one of these days, but I found I had lost the art of thinking on command.

Hey, do you remember the days when we used to see people—even single teenagers—walking down the street alone, perhaps on the way to a friend’s house, or to the store for their mom, and they did not have earbuds on? You know what they were doing during that walk? They were thinking. They had no choice back then. Perhaps it was not the best quality thinking (perhaps it was repetitive or fantasizing or a rehashing of the past or a rehearsing of grievances) but at least it was thinking. At least there was a chance—the merest chance—that God could break through with something real, something true, something salvific.

The modern man walks down the street plugged in to music (usually not of very good quality) so that he can avoid that most intolerable of modern fears—the fear of having nothing to do but think.

Never mind, it all plays into the agenda of the hidden nefarious forces bent on world domination through a passive citizenry that is constantly doped up on piped-in, mind-numbing messages instilling a false sense of well-being. At least that is what I thought while pacing the parking lot at Dunkin’ Donuts waiting for a friend to arrive.