Anton Savage: Is there anything more enjoyable than a long, slow think?
Warren Buffett insists on a portion of every day being set aside to just sit and think; we should all follow his lead
Originally published in the Business Post.
My dad used to stare at the wardrobe. Not constantly. But on occasion he could be found sitting on top of the bed fully clothed, gazing at it. I asked him once what he was doing. “Staring at the wardrobe,” he said unhelpfully.
In truth he was thinking, and didn’t want to be asked the mandatory follow-up question if you ever tell anyone you’re thinking: “about what?“ He maintained that no-one in history ever wanted to be asked that. It’s a Catch-22; if they wanted to discuss what they were thinking, they wouldn’t be thinking, they’d already be talking. Thinking is not a team sport.
As a boy I couldn’t understand why he would care about sharing his thoughts, because those thoughts, when described, were so unwaveringly boring. He revealed years later this was no coincidence - he made up amazingly dull fake reflections to deter people from asking further or future questions.
“What are you thinking about dad?”
“The quickest way to get from Whitehall to Chapelizod in rush hour.”
“Right so, I’m off on my bike”.
His ruse worked. For years I believed my dad had an unhealthy obsession with north Dublin traffic patterns and just left him alone in his head. This must have come as a great relief, because as I child I was afflicted with a condition called “never shutting the hell up”.
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