A follow up to Pico Iyer’s article “The Pleasure of Quiet,” The Artwork of Stillness considers the unexpected adventure of staying place and reveals a counterintuitive truth: The more ways we have to connect, the greater we seem desperate to unplug.

Why may a lifelong traveller like Pico Iyer, that has journeyed from Easter Island to Ethiopia, Cuba to Kathmandu, believe sitting down quietly in a room might be the ultimate adventure? Because in our madly accelerating world, our lives are crowded, chaotic and about The Art of Stillness: Activities in Heading Nowhere noisy. There’s under no circumstances been a greater need to decelerate, tune out and present ourselves permission to become still.

In The Artwork of Stillness-a TED Books release-Iyer investigate the lives of individuals who’ve made a life seeking stillness: from Matthieu Ricard, a Frenchman having a PhD in molecular biology who still left a promising medical career to become Tibetan monk, to revered singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, who traded the pleasures from the senses for quite some time of living the near-silent life of meditation being a Zen monk. Iyer also draws by himself experiences as a travel writer to explore why advances in technology are producing us much more likely to retreat. He displays that this is perhaps the reason why many people-even those with no spiritual commitment-seem to be turning to yoga, or meditation, or looking for silent retreats. These aren’t New Age fads so much as ways to rediscover the intelligence of a youthful age. Growing tendencies like observing an “Internet Sabbath”-turning off on the web connections from Friday night to Mon morning-highlight how significantly desperate many of us are to unplug and bring stillness into our lives.

The Art of Stillness paints an image of why so many-from Marcel Proust to Mahatma Gandhi to Emily Dickinson-have found richness in stillness. Ultimately, Iyer shows that, in this age group of constant motion and connectedness, perhaps residing in one place is usually a more interesting prospect, and a greater necessity than previously.

In 2013, Pico Iyer gave a blockbuster TED Chat. This lyrical and uplifting reserve expands on a new idea, supplying a way forward for all those feeling affected by the frenetic speed of our contemporary world.