I hit the “Pause” button. That’s what I figuratively did to this blog a few months ago. I was still pondering and writing, but I paused to deliberately focus my thoughts on something new.
An aspect of pondering is lingering. Lingering takes time and focus. It’s about slowing down and waiting — letting the new ideas simmer. I was still writing, but not blogs. I was focusing on writing a book.
Blogs tend to be based on single ideas. To put it in exploration terms, an individual blog entry is a landmark. It’s a point in time. It’s one idea.
Books are fundamentally different. Books are like a constellation of ideas coming together to form a bigger picture, much like each individual star forms the larger shape of the Big Dipper. To produce a book the author must take the individual ideas, create an order from them, which results in a larger, cohesive thought. This requires long periods of reflection.
In order to do that reflecting and lingering on what the big picture of Exploration is, and its potential, I needed to step back from this blog. Multiple blog posts don’t make a book, they simply make a collection of ideas.
Good explorers are always on the go, rarely stopping to contemplate. Great explorers stop, wait, survey everything around them, and take the time to ponder. These are necessary steps in exploration … and book writing.