Are Certain Places More Conducive To Deep Thought?

What places in your life do you feel most comfortable discussing life’s bigger questions? Is it in your home? A favorite coffee shop? Or perhaps there’s no physical space at all. Maybe it’s during a walk around your neighborhood, on a phone call, or in an email thread.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about which spaces are most conducive to the deep conversations about the most philosophical aspects of life. Questions like “what is happiness?” or “what’s our end goal?” or “how best should I contribute to society?” The big questions.

I’ve noticed that, at least in my circles, these are seldom discussed. They’re not exactly happy-hour appropriate without running the risk of becoming “that guy” who can’t just talk about sports or work or this polar vortex we’re facing.

I can’t tell whether there just isn’t an appetite to discuss these questions because of their complexities or simply that because of our myopic human nature, we don’t think of them as often as we should.

What’s surprising is that we all are leading lives that in some manner are driving towards answering these questions, but we just don’t seem to face them directly that often or discuss them with others.

When was the last time you had one of these deep conversations? Who was it with and what’d you talk about? Where was it?

Of course there are authors, publishers, philosophers who cover these topics, and, for example, the NYT comment section is a surprisingly insightful space on occasion, but seldom do I hear these conversations arise amongst friends or family.

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Do you choose to steer away from or embrace these broader questions?

Is there a space in your life that more seamlessly evokes these deep discussions? Let me know where you’re at as I keep pondering this one myself.

See you tomorrow.