June 20th
Guy Claxton was born on June 20th 1947 and educated at King's School, Worcester and Cambridge and Oxford. His prolific writings on psychology, education and spirituality include the books The Heart of Buddhism, Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: Why intelligence increases when you think less, and Wise Up: The challenge of lifelong learning. For several years a follower of the controversial Indian mystic Osho (Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh), he was a founding teacher at Schumacher College in South Devon, where he now lives, and is visiting professor in the University of Bristol Graduate School of Education.
Learn to loaf
a tip from
Guy Claxton
Learning the art of loafing is absolutely essential for creativity, productivity and peace of mind. It is vital to spend time every day dozing, doodling and goofing off. You should never ignore feeling sleepy: it is literally dangerous habitually to keep on going when your body is telling you to rest. The faster the pace of life, the more you need to make time to meander, drift and do things that have no point or product. Flyfishing with all its busy swishing misses the point. Sitting on the canal bank, mindlessly watching the float, lost in reverie, having totally forgotten the fish that's the state that feeds the soul. Find your equivalent form of inactivity, cherish it, and give yourself to it as regularly as you can.
Guy Claxton adds: One of the ways I learn things is to write a book about them and then gradually realise the 'truth' in my own life of what I have described. Since I wrote Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind I have been learning to practise what I had been drawn to preach. I have slowed down. I doze and potter. I have shed the old voice from childhood that kept telling me I ought to be 'being productive' and 'fulfilling my potential'. I feel better. And, strangely enough, I think that I'm thinking (and writing) better than I ever did before. I work very productively in bursts, usually between breakfast and lunch. And then have a good rest and don't feel at all guilty. It works!
© This tip appears here as an advertisement for the 400-page charity fundraising anthology Seize the Day (£12.00, published by Chatto & Windus, Random House UK Ltd) edited by Nicholas Albery and Stephanie Wienrich. This tip is protected by copyright and appeared in the book with kind permission of the author and may not be reprinted without the permission of the publishers. For the full acknowledgement credits see this book. It is available for advance mail order by credit card for £13.99 including UK postage and packing (slight extra elsewhere). It makes a wonderful and much appreciated present.