Chapter 7/8

Activity and Rest

A fundamental dialectic is the bipolar movement between activity and rest: day and night, six work days and a sabbath, break time during the work day, the growing seasons and winter, two hours of driving on the road followed by a rest stop, (federal law allows truckers thirteen hours on the road and mandates at least ten hours off duty before driving again, although many studies show this to be an inadequate rest period). If we stay only at one pole, we eventually burn out; if we stay too long at the other pole, we accomplish little or nothing. We need both rest and activity.

So it is with thinking. Think too long and your mind gives out. On the other hand, don’t quit too soon. I remember when our university bestowed an honorary doctorate on a wealthy south Texas farmer/business man. In his acceptance speech he said he often was asked the secret of his success. He told us it was just three words: “A little more.”

Thinking is work. In the early stages of becoming a considerate thinker, it can be hard work. The mind balks and says, “Leave me alone.” When this occurs, see if you can give it just “a little more.” Try to think of just one more “other hand” possibility, one more aspect of the antithesis, or another facet of either thesis or antithesis. Just one more try, then give it a rest.

The oak tree and the grape vine need winter’s dormant period so they can digest, stabilize, and incorporate the gains of the growing season. They need winter also for rest, restoration, and recovery. The birds of the air, the beasts of the field, the reader and writer–people like you and me–all need daily sleep. Some of us get by on a little less, others of us seem to require a bit more, but we slight our sleep only at great risk.

When the mind tires of cerebration, it calls us to move, for a while, toward the other pole: mindlessness. Myself, I check CNN online for a news update, get a snack from the kitchen, play a card game with my wife, go outside and enjoy the wide diversity of my native plant yarden, or watch my little flock of bantam chickens. It might be a good time to go shopping, visiting, or to bed and sleep. Do just about anything, but give thinking a rest.

I spoke of thinking as hard work, particularly as we begin deliberately to think according to the dictates of the dialectic. The “a little more” stretches the mind, even as a little more stretches our physical muscles. Just as we grow stronger lifting weights, gradually increasing the weight, so our minds grow stronger as we gradually demand more of them.

Think, think a little more, retreat, rest, allow time and space for re-creation. Cognitive ability will grow. Some of us will require more, some less mental rest and restoration. Give yourself whatever time is required to enable you to come back with readiness and enthusiasm. The time will come when thinking is no more tiring than walking or talking. The dialectic calls for some kind of rhythmic movement between activity and rest. Think about it.