Thoughts from an author abroad

One of the things about travelling is that it makes you think differently - differently from how you think in your home routine. So it was with my recent trip to the UAE to speak at the Sharjah Children’s Reading Festival.

I had many, many thoughts, some of which are not worth sharing. After shuggling them around my spinning brain for a couple of weeks, I seem to have sorted them into three groups of idea that are relevant to share here.

They may be of interest to you if any of these apply to you:

• You are an author who does events for schools, book festivals and the like - or an aspiring author who might find themselves doing such things one day. (For this, you need only wait for Part One.)

• You would like to contemplate how certain groups of teenagers are very much not like other certain groups of teenagers and what we can learn from this fact, a fact which seems obvious and comfortable but which, I assure you, is going to raise questions which are not at all comfortable. I don’t know what you will think when I get to that part. I am still struggling with it. (Part Two.)

• You are interested in how we can use our minds well, mindfully, insightfully, intro- and extrospectively. So, you are interested in thinking about thinking - metacognition. (This is my focus in Part Three, though I also introduce it in this post.)

• You are interested in how we maintain mental strength when all around are losing theirs and when the world is risky (as it has always been, but this is not about measuring statistical danger but about how we process it and manage risk. (Also Part Three.)

The three parts:

1. Part One: Eating Porridge from a Stick - On coping with the expected and unexpected challenges (and joys) of doing author events

2. Part Two: Drinking Watermelon from a Goblet - On teenagers: all human, each individual but also conforming to group behaviour and reflecting their cultures (and what we may have lost in the “West” - though you might disagree entirely)

3. Part Three: Meeting Batman in the Sky - On holding two opposing thoughts and still staying strong and well, because superheroes are made at home and we are the ones who make them.

All three parts overlap and are all inspired by the thinking I was able to do on my trip, so I hope you will read them all. I also haven’t written any of them yet so I hope this all works!

Before I get to the first one, let me say something about thinking

In my opinion, people don’t do enough of it. I include myself in that but I do recognise that those occasions when I don’t make time to think are when I make mistakes, miss opportunities, react instead of proact and feel less in control, less creative, more overwhelmed and more pessimistic. Knowing that does help me at least sometimes prioritise thinking space. Wanting to do something and knowing why is an important start.

…those occasions when I don’t make time to think are when I … feel less in control, less creative, more overwhelmed and more pessimistic

The main reason people don’t do enough of it is that they lack time. But generally we lack time because we fill the small bits of time that would be enough for thinking with one opposite action: looking at our phone. (Or whatever device we have open, because we almost always have a device open and within reach. Or if we don’t we can.) Or using it in some other way, such as listening to a podcast

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with those actions. Often they are incredibly useful; they may teach us something important; they may knock a task off our to-do list; they may be relaxing; they may genuinely be something we need to do. But be honest: think how often they are not useful or not particularly so. They are often somewhere between trivial and destructive. They too often load our brain with more information before we’ve processed the existing stuff, let alone created a new thought or idea.

Those “small bits of time that would be enough for thinking” include when we are:

• Waiting for a bus/train/plane

• On a bus/train/plane - looking out of the window is a great thinking opportunity

• Waiting for the kettle to boil / toast to pop / food to be cooked

• Watering the garden

• Doing simple tasks such as ironing, vacuuming, washing-up, weeding

• Walking or running - although it’s hard to look at your phone while doing these things (I try), we often listen to a podcast or similar. Again, there might be a really good reason for doing this, but it does stop us thinking.)

• In a bath or on the loo!

• Ready to go somewhere earlier than we needed to be ready - which, granted, rarely happens, because … we were on our phone …

How do we make ourselves think on demand?

It’s very like sleep: you don’t fall to sleep by telling yourself to go to sleep. You fall asleep by setting yourself up for sleep to come to your sleep-ready brain, for example by avoiding caffeine and alcohol; by stopping work early enough; by having a winding-down routine; and more. (I’ve written a lot on sleep, which you can find easily, but please don’t go now. Stay here!)

Let’s call this fishing for ideas. There are different sorts of *fishing and different locations and methods for different fish to be caught.

(*No fish die in this activity - it’s metaphorical, for goodness’ sake)

We set ourself up for fish to land by doings things such as:

• Recognising when we are or are about to be in a good fishing location (things from the list above)

• Switching phones (etc) off and ideally putting out of sight. Fish are frightened away by electronics.

• If necessary and possible, blocking interruptions - perhaps putting ear-plugs in or taking ourself to a quiet riverbank on your own.

• If we know which fish we want to catch, closing our eyes could be helpful so we can focus on the feel of the line

• If we just want to cast our net wide and be open to whatever fish might arrive, keeping eyes open is often preferable, because what we see might be inspiring and because dark waters can be disconcerting

• Not worrying if we don’t catch a fish - remember: we weren’t planning to eat it anyway.

Way too busy for this?

Occasionally, you are. But if you want to do your best in whatever you want to do your best in - whether work, creativity, parenthood, friendship, anything - you are way more likely to do your best if you have some time to think. We can cope with short periods of “too much on, no time to think” but never or not often enough having time to think will impair your health, strength, performance, happiness and life. So it is your first duty to make sure that when there is time to think you grab it and use it for just that.

…it is your first duty to make sure that when there is time to think you grab it and use it for just that.

Isn’t this just an excuse for day-dreaming and a waste of time? I’ve written about this before but I can’t find where now (too busy to think where it might be!!) but I just found this useful 2024 article by Barbara Field in VeryWell Mind.

Why is foreign travel especially good for thinking?

It takes you away from your normal environment. This is called “novelty” in psychological terms and is a powerful wake-up for our brains. The very act of being “elsewhere” wakes you up. you are likely to notice more.

Things are “different” and require you to process them. The act of processing the different things you notice encourage you to test them against your existing experience and, perhaps, to challenge what you thought was “normal”. This can spark new ideas, new feelings, new musings.

You meet different people and have conversations that make you feel alert and newly informed and educated. Challenged, maybe.

There are many opportunities that give space and time and permission for thinking - all that hanging around waiting for transport or sitting on transport.

The only way in which foreign travel might hinder thinking is that you do have to concentrate, in order to avoid missing a plane… This did not happen to me but it did happen to someone I met at the festival. She had to sprint through a hot airport because she had been carried away with some creative observations of everything around her.

Mind you, that could equally happen if she was playing C**dy C$%sh S*ga on her phone… And at least my friend had some great sketches to show for her near disaster whereas there is no such benefit to be gained from playing CCS.

Do join me in the next few days for Part One of my Thoughts from an Author Abroad.