Thinking positions

"Then you had better leave me, so that I can go to work with the paper straight before me, and my pen fixed in my fingers. I can never begin to think till I find myself in that position."

Anthony Trollope, Dr. Wortle's School

Anthony Trollope

Dr. Wortle, the main character in the Anthony Trollope novel Dr. Wortle's School, has his favorite thinking position, as I suspect many of us do.

Charles Dickens liked to take long, extremely long, walks through London at night to mull over his plots. Thomas Wolfe wrote best standing at his refrigerator, or perhaps it was an icebox, letting completed sheets of paper float to the floor. Some writers think they can work only with a pen and legal pad. I have always felt more creative in front of a keyboard.

Non-writers have their favorite thinking positions, as well. It may be while sitting in an easy chair, driving a car, cooking dinner, taking a shower or pretending to sleep.

In any case, two things seem to be most important: solitude and habit.

Organizations of all kinds typically appoint committees to solve problems, yet it has been found again and again that individuals pondering problems on their own are more creative than committees. Committees may work as sounding boards or rubber stamps, but individuals actually come up with most of the great ideas.

It can be difficult to think clearly with other people around, especially when they are talking and interrupting one's thoughts. A good thinking position usually requires solitude. But not always.

When I began in the newspaper business I found it difficult to concentrate in a busy newsroom, where telephones were ringing, typewriters were clacking and people were talking, sometimes even shouting, constantly. Yet at the end of my career, when the newsroom had become mostly depopulated and computers were mostly quiet, I found the relative silence made it difficult to focus my thoughts. I had gotten used to the bustle.

And so the second and perhaps most important essential is habit. We do our best thinking in one particular situation because that is the situation that has worked before. Newness distracts. The familiar comforts. To do our best thinking we seek out those circumstances that seemed to aid our thinking in the past.