Thinking About Thinking

In last week's New Yorker, Adam Gopnik reflects about the role of food and cooking in contemporary fiction. In "Cooked Books," he describes his attempts to cook dishes from recent books, such as the English bouillabaisse the protagonist cooks in Ian McEwan's Saturday. Gopnik concludes that cooking and thinking do not go together:

[T]he act of cooking is an escape from consciousness—the nearest thing that the non-spiritual modern man and woman have to Zen meditation; its effect is to reduce us to a state of absolute awareness, where we are here now of necessity. . . . What you can’t do is think and cook, because cooking takes the place of thought. (You can daydream and cook, but you can’t advance a chain of sustained reflections.). . . Every age finds an activity that can take place while a character is meditating; the activity surrounds and halos the meditation. In Victorian fiction, it is walking. . . . In recent American fiction, driving was recessive enough to do the job. . . . Driving and walking, however, do seem to be natural “background” actions. But you cannot have characters thinking while cooking; the activity is not a place for thought but in place of thought.

I'm afraid I have to disagree; in fact, I began envisioning this post while cooking dinner a few nights ago. (I am also perhaps a bit defensive, since a recent story of mine involved a woman making cornbread while mulling over her husband's secrets.) Provided you're not cooking something new and complex (I can't speak to bouillabaisse ), and provided the kitchen is free of toddlers and other distractions, cooking leaves ample time for reflection; you can chop and stir while advancing logical arguments in your head.

The essay brings up a larger question: When and how do we think? Do we ever have the coherent reflections of literary characters? In the past few days, I've been paying attention to when I think, and the most common times seem to be cooking, driving, walking, working out at the gym (but not on the exercise bike, when I tend to read), and taking a shower.

I wonder--do people think less than they used to? It seems to me modern American life tends to prize action over thinking, and there are certainly myriad entertainment options if you'd rather not think. Did people several generations ago have more time for quiet reflection, or were they focused on basic work and survival? Has the multitasking electronic environment made linear thought less prevalent?

Writing this post has sure made me think.