Note:
This author is a professor at Northeastern university. And he is definitely not writing here in a Christian or spiritual context. But I’m struck, as you probably are, how when he writes about the conditions he sets himself to improve his writing it sounds as if he is writing about conditions conducive to contemplation.

Quote:
“To avoid the easiest, most comfortable narrative of the moment, I have learned that writing … demands a special discipline.

“It requires clearing away competing noise, reserving time for deep reading and critical reflection, seeking solitude away from the constant churn of today’s argument-fueled culture.

“It requires a writer to quiet the mind, and to stop thinking about possible criticism or praise for what they write. ….

“The price of zipping around on the Web and social media is a loss in our depth of thinking, the essential trait of the intellectual and writer. …

“I choose to spend my days surrounded by the stillness of my office or within the sacred sanctuary of a library, no digital screen in sight, filling Moleskin notebooks with observations, engaged in the type of deep reading and immersion necessary to tie together insights and arguments into a fresh web of analysis.”

Source: ‘The Mindful Climate Change Writer’ by Matthew Nisbet, PhD viewed online at
https://medium.com/wealth-of-ideas/the-mindful-climate-change-writer-102ad432b283