One of the reasons that this business of not thinking is both tremendously simple and surprisingly difficult is that it isn’t about trying not to think so much as not trying to think. It’s no good smashing thoughts down forcefully as they arise, like that arcade game where you bop the alligator heads with a mallet as they emerge from their caves. The way I think of it, thoughts are more like the pearl that accretes around a bit of dirt inside an oyster’s shell. The thought begins its existence as a sort of seed in my mind—a vague, nonverbal impression—and as I focus on it, it gathers more and more material, takes shape in words or images, and begins careening off other thoughts that happen to be lying around in the vicinity.

Not trying to think means letting the thought stay as that vague, shapeless impression, like a bubble that just floats around instead of popping on the surface of the water. We can’t spend all of our time forming pearls; sometimes we need a break.