Days sometimes feel like a race against an emptying hourglass, each passing hour a nagging reminder of tasks left undone. But yesterday morning, I did something different. Instead of diving headfirst into my usual pace, I quietly slipped on my shoes before the household stirred. I stepped outside into the cool fall air, the crispness a refreshing shock to my system, and began walking—

For the first forty years of my life, my reality was utterly defined by the ever-present flow of thoughts and words articulating my existence. It was so constant and had been there for as long as I could remember that I took for granted that this was an imperturbable feature of a human existence - to be constantly accompanied by this sense making machine.