It depends on the person, ultimately.

Imagine every book you’ve ever seen, and now think about before they were books. Before they were volumes on a shelf, most of the time sitting mutely, collecting dust, they were ideas. They were ideas that became a labor of love at the hands of hundreds of thousands, millions even, I suppose, whatever the number, they were crafted by the hands of authors. Well, and heads, I suppose. And in the cases of the best ones, heart. Or so one would hope.

And when engaged so deeply in creating anything, a level of focus is required, a level of commitment is demanded.

Around the writer, there might be a world in chaos, or at a more microcosmic level of magnification, it might just be his world that is deconstructing. Maybe all these things are happening. The writer doesn’t care.

Because for the duration of his life spent working on that particular book, the one you’re holding right now, the world around him didn’t matter. There was only one place, one world with which he was concerned, and that is the world of his making. The places, the people, the sounds, the smells of his world are all he knows.

And as you can imagine there are a great many things which he must consciously set aside for the time being.

But in the period between finishing the final draft and the book’s release, there’s still plenty of work to do with regard to the next steps of its commute. What there isn’t, anymore, is his total consumption. He’s no longer imprisoned in his creation, one in which he’d been the jailer as well as the convict.

And so he can think about other things.

It’s Spring, and that means baseball. And in my family, that means Yankee Baseball. I can think about the game now, as Spring Training is in full swing and things are beginning to come together for Opening Day.

I can think about making a list of music to listen to while I’m working. I have Apple Music, and as such have access to a good chunk of every sound ever recorded, going back to Thomas Edison’s recital of “Mary Had A Little Lamb.” [citation needed]

The problem is when I’m working I can’t think of a damn thing I want to listen to, even though I know I want to listen to something. So I spend way too much time staring at iTunes, doing nothing.

So a list.

I can think about spring cleaning too, although I don’t particularly want to. But it’s a necessary evil, and thinking about it earns me back some of the goodwill that was lost during the writing. “Hey, ya know what? I gotta get cleaning this place, top to bottom!” When I talk like this, my wife smiles at me, like she used to when she thought I was sexy. I think when I think about spring cleaning it might just make me sexy again. At least to the only girl that matters.

I can think about upcoming road trips, (which also seems to make me sexy), and plan fun things that we can do when our world can enmesh to that level, at least for a while.

But I have a confession to make. Even in the midst of all this freedom to reconsider the other splinters of light and sound that make up my existence, several times a day I think about The Beauty of Bucharest. I guess it isn’t that strange. Even when I’m moving outside the confines of my imagined world, my mind wanders back and, if not finding a way fully back inside, at least holds its ear to the walls and wonders what might be happening.

And most of the time, when it happens, I’m pretty good at looking like I have at least some idea of what’s going on in my vicinity.

So I leave you with a challenge:

Take some time today to think about something that you really don’t have time to think about.