For the Best Ideas, Go Without

I just returned from a walk on the beach, jumping in the water, searching for shells with my son.

I had nothing on me that couldn’t be underwater in the ocean — pretty much just the clothes on my back.

That’s when all the ideas hit me.

• The best photos because I had no camera
• The best essays because I had no notebook
• The best Tweets because I had no phone

This is how it always has been, of course. Ideas flow when we go without. Nowadays, we’re just rarely without.