Thought time

I am wondering what it is about the human need to sit and reflect. Some of my favourite moments in the last years were when I realised that days, possibly even a week had passed since I had spoken more than a few words to other humans. This mostly happenned while travelling. It helps if you can't speak the language, but more than that it also revealed to me the insane levels of communication that occur during our lives. I was thinking about this again at a recent conference, we would spend every waking moment with other people, roughly 19 hours a day absorbing information. The other five were spent sleeping/showering. This makes me wonder at what point do we stop and reflect on what we are learning. Is it possible to live life, constantly receiving information, responding in kind on the spin of a dime?

There is something powerful about walking the same path home everyday but experiencing it differently each time due to the thoughts and feelings of the day. Processing the days events, asking when it was that you were at your best, learning from the times when you thought you could have tried that little bit harder and achieved a different result. Looking over how you related to your companiions over the course of the day, asking if you fully respected those around you.

I hope that at some point in our lifes we all find levels of success that allow for a half hour walk each day, to be close to nature of some description and that this leads to a happier life for all involved.