ACYL Side Bar
PONDER
By J. Wickliffe Cauthorn
Cauthorn Nohr & Owen
[email protected]
M
y brain never shuts down; conversation with friends
and family involves frequent forays into the office
to peruse files and review the calendar. Rarely do
I dream when facts located in a deposition don’t meander
into some long ago never taken trip to Buenos Aires. I have
a difficult time reading a novel without arguing motions for
sometimes two or three pages at a time. There are days
where I cannot even focus on what I am doing while at
work because some other thing that needs to be done
keeps interrupting me. Deadlines interrupt deadlines.
I miss pondering.
My New Year’s resolution begins today. I am going to finish this
week and take the rest of the year off to ponder. I will ponder
a novel, perhaps. I will ponder a poem, certainly. Maybe I’ll
ponder some clouds. I have read that it will take several days
just to prepare my brain. It will take hours of nothing – and
I mean nothing: no email, no telephone, no internet. Hours.
Nothing.
Research has shown that Americans don’t take enough time
off. We never really get away. Big organizations are starting to
i ncentivize vacations. We wear our “hard work” on our sleeve.
Stress is a badge of honor. Working late at the office is a
sacrifice we make so that we may laud ourselves as martyrs.
We all fancy ourselves coal miners. Busy. I’m so busy. Oh,
geez, wow. So Busy. So behind, got to work late. Got to get
up early. Very, very busy.
The hours not spent on employment are devoted to a strictly
scheduled social calendar. We’ve replaced spontaneous
social interaction with metered “fun.” In fact, just as I typed
the word “everything,” an email from my wife showed up in my
inbox. The email is about Christmas, a holiday. The subject
line? “To do.” Our days have become measured. There is no
difference between the workday and the weekend, but for the
lack of remuneration for our stressful Saturdays and Sundays.
Even the things we want to do have become impossibly taxing
because they are wedged in between a neighbor child’s
birthday party and dinner with a colleague.
12 THE ATLANTA LAWYER
December 2015
I’m through for 2015. For the next two weeks, I will ponder.
I plan to build up to it; I’m out of practice. I’ll start with some
magazines that have stacked up on the coffee table, then I’ll
do something I haven’t done in about five years: I’ll take a
walk. Not a walk for exercise. I’ll probably wear chinos and a
sweater…maybe a light jacket. I’ll meander. When I get tired,
I’ll turn around (or not); I might even sit.
After taking a walk, I’m going to finish a novel that’s been
mocking me from my nightstand for a year. It’s a long novel.
I might have to spend the better part of an afternoon just
reminding myself where I am in the story. Hopefully, sometime
during the reading of the novel, I will stare out the window.
Once I get a good rhythm and have my sea legs under me, I
plan to read a poem. I plan to spend a whole morning on it.
I’ll read it twenty times. After the tenth, I’ll go get a third cup
of coffee and stand in a window. I will ponder.
Hopefully at some point in late December I will have a thought
that makes me cry.
Ponder.
You should ponder. You should make it a priority. You should
have a new thought. Something from the ether should capture
you.
You’ll have to escape from the mines. It will take days; your
brain will take you back to work. You’ll have to fight it. You’ll
have to focus on doing nothing.
Just find a comfortable place to sit.
Sit and ponder.
The Official News Publication of the Atlanta Bar Association