An interesting aside in Santiago Ramón y Cajal's Advice for a Young Investigator on neuroplasticity, creativity, and identity: When one reflects on the ability that humans display for modifying and refining
Wilder Penfield, from his 1962 address "The Use of Idleness," republished in The Second Career: The best rest for doing one thing is doing another until you fall
Chess is often regarded by smart people as a great way to unwind, while still mentally challenging themselves. Yet this is not a view universally held. The great
Alfred Russel Wallace was a Victorian naturalist and collector, best-known today for coming up with a version of the theory of evolution by natural selection, and sending it
James Hamblin talks to Manoush Zomorodi about boredom and creativity. It's whimsical, but still, nicely done.
One of the best descriptions of mind-wandering, by Oliver Wendell Holmes: Many times, when I have got upon the cars, expecting to be magnetized into an hour or
The Sydney Morning Herald has a piece about Neil Gaiman's search for boredom. Neil Gaiman tried a novel New Year's resolution last year: he took a four-month hiatus
One of the people I've become interested in while writing Rest (331 days to go!) is Hans Selye, the Viennese-born scientist who is one of the inventors of
From Joseph Jastrow, The subconscious (1906): [D]istraction and the idler moments of contemplative revery are as essential to fruitful production as the intent periods of executive effort; the
From William James' The Gospel of Relaxation, a great bit about the impact of exercise on one's capacity to contribute to public life: Consider, for example, the effects