Lying down for that Thinker's pose?

I was inclined to take a RealDayofRestandRecreation after doing overtime work yesterday -- Labour Day -- posting my desiderata.english.special plus a May 1 entryspecial.

But being a stickler to set targets for myself -- determined to upload at least one post everyday from Day 1, here's a "lazy" piece done lying down.

Before this, my ideal vision of a Thinker was that of a Man -- or Woman -- sitiing on his backside beneath a tree with a book in his hand, or if minus a book, with his head inclined clasped in the palm of one hand, with his arm holding it up in the direction of the heavens. See, that was how one of my favourite philosophers, Henry David Thoreau, had that image depicted, with a slight variation, in the book cover of Walden -- Essay on Civil Disobedience. It showed a young man in a sitting posture leaned against a tree trunk with an open book by his side, contemplating Nature, +mayhaps+ in the setting of the lush green woods near Walden Pond.

I used the two + signs to highlight this word in an earlier post because I mean to comment on it later, which falls to today's lazy day of doing it. Often, I had used "maybe" to describe a "possibility", and to prevent repetition, used "perhaps", also another "possibility" (Potential good writers are taught to avoid repeating the usage of the same word wherever possible. I had used Poetic Licence to use this new combo word "mayhaps" to stress that the "possibility" of the event happening "is even more remote" than indicated by perhaps and maybe. I invite Readers who have used this "mayhaps" to write&tell me what meaning they had in mind, OK? I sighted it once in a fellow Blogger's post; I'll will try to explore it with her and report back if I'm inclined this way again.

Back to the Thinker tale.

An NST report today on page 10 quoting The Times datelined LONDON, Sun. carried the headline Lying down best way to think.

"Relax! The figure prostrate in bed or on the sofa next to you this morning is not just slobbing out. Scientific research shows that lying down is the best way to think.

Rodin's The Thinker may do it sitiing down; Sir Winston Churchill did it in the bath smoking a cigar; others claim to have their best ideas while jogging.

But researchers now believe the cleverest way to think is while curled up in bed or on a sofa. Clinical tests have shown men and women can solve problems faster while lying down compared to when they are standing up."

The report went on to say that the research, carried out at the Australian National University, suggests that lying down can boost thinking speeds by 10 percent.

Scientists have discovered that noradrenalin, a natural hormone produced in the brain by stress, interferes with the brain cells and reduces people's attention to detail and reasoning. When people stand up, it triggers a reaction in the brain which produces more of this hormone.

So if you do sight desiderata lying down, whether in bed or on the grass (remeember Splendour in the Grass with Natalie Wood?), please do not disturb. He is in deep reflection, or in a stupour. You're not welcome to discover the truth of either!

PS: My favourite poet, Max EHRMANN (1872-1945), seemed to have an inkling of this latest science finding -- as Robert L. Bell said in the INTRODUCTION to The DESIDERATA of HAPPINESS: "Contemporaries told of him (Max) lying in the grass contemplating the sky -- an early flower child."