For myself, I tend to do my most important thinking in incidental, accidental, almost daydreamy ways. Making a sandwich, taking a shower, sitting in a wrought-iron chair in the Lakehurst mall food court waiting for someone who’s late, riding the CTA train and staring at both the passing scene and my own faint reflection superimposed on it in the window—and suddenly you find you’re thinking about things that end up being important. It’s almost the opposite of awareness, if you think about it. I think this experience of accidental thinking is common, if perhaps not universal, although it’s not
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