So, like many people, your New Year’s resolution is to go on a diet. But what are you doing for your mind? This editorial gives readers something to think about as the author discusses his dietary journey for both body and mind.

Pico Iyer, author of The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere, did not hear from his doctor to cut down on junk  food after an annual physical. And yet nonetheless he did, noticing that his not paying too much attention to his food intake was part of his not paying enough attention to what he put into his overall being, including his mind:

I was, in short, what I’d call an externalist — a person who’ll exercise great care over what he puts into his body and never think about what he puts into his mind. Who will dwell at length on everything he can see, in order to distract himself from the fact that it’s everything he can’t see on which his well-being depends. Who will fill his head with so much junk that he can’t remember that wolfing down Buffalo wings is not the problem, but a symptom.

Food for thought indeed. Read more…