I was singing today in a choir, and the director said something very interesting. He had observed the alto section get lost and fall apart, and he said, “If you find yourself lost, don’t try to think, try to open up to your surroundings and let them help you intuit what needs to happen. Thinking takes too much time, intuition is instantaneous.”

He is so right! I haven’t been singing for a while, and I really do miss it and I think this is why. My work life involves a lot of thinking, and it needs to be balanced with some intuitive activity. Both are valid ways of knowing, and both have very different qualities, and in my experience, very different effects on me. Too much thinking tends to tire me, and makes me tend towards depression and stagnation. It can be easy to become stuck. I’m most familiar with this mode of knowing, so I’m not too sure what the effects of too much intuiting are. I do know that the kind of intuitive activity involved in singing with a group of people makes me feel better.