I've been thinking about the "pause" lately, the importance of connecting with the natural rhythms of nature especially as we are continually bombarded with the unfathomable in the political realm. I absolutely think we can't "tune out," and yet, I certainly need a great many breaks.
I re-visit Thoreau:
It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful, but it is more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. We are tasked to make our lives, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of our most elevated and critical hour.
When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality.
Nothing can be more useful to a man than a determination not to be hurried.