Haruki Murakami wrote a memoir about running called What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. Until I googled it, I thought the title was What I Think About When I Think About Running. I had been recommending it under the wrong name for years, which tells you both about how carefully I read book covers and what I wanted the book to be about.
I run short distances: usually ten kilometres, in Jonkershoek, in the early morning as the sun rises over the peaks. It’s spectacularly beautiful. These are also the best times to think. I think about a lot of things while running. My research. My family. Blog post topics. More research ideas, ideas that I’m confident will be publishable in a top journal. An idea to start a new company. Wait, that’s actually a brilliant idea. Why has no one founded a company like that? A bug walking across the road. I’m getting tired; my leg hurts. Oof, I’m not sure clients will pay that much for my great idea. Another bug. (There must be some poop nearby.) I need to remember to renew the family Wildcard, otherwise I’ll have to pay to get into Jonkershoek. Oh, and the car licence while I’m at it. The research idea won’t work because of endogeneity issues. You get the point.
Which is why I find it fascinating when people say that ‘writing is thinking’. No, writing is sitting down and forcing yourself to think about something. Which is why you think. It is not the writing that does the thinking. It is the thinking that does the thinking. You don’t need the writing to do the thinking, but the discipline of the writing helps the thinking, yes.
