This idea may not be what people want to hear-after all, who would want to give up the idea of going to Hawaii… to go Nowhere? But, when you look a little closer at the dynamics of far and distant travel, the notion of “Nowhere” may begin to make more sense. Rather than taking the time to venture off to far and distant lands, he makes an argument for the opposite-adventuring to nowhere in particular and taking that time to turn inward. In his book, The Art of Stillness, Pico Iyer writes about an unconventional approach to adventure that involves, not traveling to New Orleans or Hawaii, but to “Nowhere.” And yes, that’s exactly what he means.
But if you want to come back feeling new – alive and full of fresh hope and in love with the world – I think the place to visit may be Nowhere.” Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness Beyond the Quote (101/365) You can go on vacation to Hawaii or New Orleans three months from now, and you’ll have a tremendous time, I’m sure. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. But effective.“In an age of speed, I began to think, nothing could be more invigorating that going slow. I pick my vehicles carefully- tea and poetry are rituals that ease the way. As physicist Alan Lightman noted, “Mental downtime is having the space and freedom to wander about the vast hallways of memory and contemplate who we are.” Stillness isn’t for everyone at all times. “Those who cannot feel the littleness of great things in themselves are apt to overlook the greatness of the little things in others” wrote scholar Kakuzo Okakura in his ode to the stilling pleasures of the tea ceremony. Yet, the art of doing nothing, going nowhere, is something vital we can carry with us always, ready to deploy at a moment’s notice. Those of us who long for stillness and uninterrupted quiet know all too well the fear of being interrupted. Sitting still, he said with unexpected passion, was the “real deep entertainment” he had found in his sixty-one years on the planet. One evening-four in the morning, then of December-Cohen took time out from his meditations to walk down to my cabin and try to explain what he was doing here. Iyer introduces us to other stillness worshippers, including Leonard Cohen, Canada’s most famous monastic, who once mourned being interrupted by a spider. “The Mountain gives itself most fully when I have no destination.” wrote Nan Shepard in The Living Mountain. Being locked inside your head can drive you made or leave you with a devil who tells you to stay at home and stay at home till you are so trapped inside your thoughts that you can’t step out or summon the power of intention. Nowhere can be scary, even if it’s a destination you’ve chosen there’s nowhere to hide there. It can also come from changes in pace interjecting moments of play alongside work. The nature of sitting still, working, and focusing sometimes requires a disciplinary process that allows us to focus on what matters. And yet, the reflection is possible through stillness. Water is so restless, aching to move without provocation. Forest pond created by the overflow from the River Arun, Sussex. Sitting still is our workplace, sometimes our battlefield. Our job, you could say, is to turn, through stillness, a life of movement into art. Our creations come not when we’re out in the world, gathering impressions, but when we’re sitting still, turning those impressions into sentences. Writers, of course, are obliged by our professions to spend much of our time going nowhere. Yet, for others, this stillness is so essential we form our existence and our profession around it. Comedian and writer John Cleese wrote of the perils of sitting and doing nothing: “There are not many jobs where you can produce absolutely nothing in the course of eight hours and the uncertainty that produces is very scary.” Roald Dahl couldn’t understand how anyone could write more than two hours a day. Iyer rationally acknowledges that this sitting still and inward dive is easier for some than for others. If your car is broken, you don’t try to find ways to repaint its chassis most of our problems-and therefore our solutions, our peace of mind-lie within. The idea behind Nowhere-choosing to sit still long enough to turn inward-is at the heart a simple one. But in The Art of Stillness, he sets aside travel and urges we do the same. 1957), a travel writer who humbly grabs us by the lapels with his empathetic and observational writing, has made a career of not sitting still. In 1980 he became a Teaching Fellow at Harvard, where he received a second Master’s. He won a King’s Scholarship to Eton and then a Demyship to Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was awarded a Congratulatory Double First with the highest marks of any English Literature student in the university. Nevertheless, this personal journey takes a feat of perseverance that unnerves multitudes. Pico Iyer was born in Oxford, England in 1957. “Go into yourself,” urged German poet Rainer Maria Rilke. The greatest adventure is sitting still with ourselves.