I can’t imagine how boring life on a 16th century French estate might be. Montaigne had his library, but for a 21st century human, it’s hard to contemplate just how little might have been to enjoy. How do you see other people unless they come calling? I know Montaigne wanted an escape from the frantic life of being mayor of Bordeaux, but sitting at home was no answer — which is probably why he enjoyed travel so much.

So, when Montaigne wrote of idle minds and needing activities, he was reporting from the depths of boredom. Of course his mind was going to wander — he might as well have been in solitary confinement in his parapet.

I needed to include this prologue to contextualize the key different in defining solitude for Montaigne and for me. His solitude was deep and suffocating. Mine is a short-term escape. My dog has not been feeling well the past few months and has been in and out of medical care, so I have to limit the length of his walks, which means I take him out more frequently.

He moves so slowly now that these short-ish walks take forever, made longer by the fact that our casual pace seems to invite everyone to stop and visit with us along the trail. I live in a neighborhood with plentiful shops and restaurants, so there’s a decent amount of street traffic at all hours, and I’m not having conversations all the time.

My life is highly social beyond that. I work out at a group fitness gym, so I interact with numerous people in that context every day. This summer, I’m taking guitar and bass classes at the Old Town School of Folk Music, which means more interaction. While summer-time in my job moves at a somewhat slower pace, this is also the planning season for much of my work — which requires more collaboration and meeting times than usual. Oh, and I’m also in a Rotary club, which has its own social demands.

And then there are summer trips and concerts. I took my children to a baseball game in Chicago last week, and that ended up putting us in a crush of people waiting nearly an hour for an “L” train home.

So, for me, solitude is what I can grab here and there each day. And as for the risks of idle minds, that is not a problem for me. If anything, I’m overstimulated on the average day, remembering how to play chords and riffs on my instruments, trying to understand my next steps after long, confusing meetings, and keeping an eye on my ailing dog, who feels the need to get up and follow me every time I move an inch.

But I still agree with Montaigne that there is value in ordering my mind through writing, applying some discipline and direction to my thoughts. My risk is not that my mind will take off and fly in any direction, it’s that my overstimulated mind will obsess over events (and especially interpersonal dynamics), replaying conversations, not letting them go.

When do I find peace? As I alluded to in my last essay, what works for me is finding movies, books and songs that turn off my critical mind — that let me shut off the on-call editor and critic necessary for me to do my job well.

I sense that I experience entertainment differently than most people. Escapism doesn’t work for me. I can’t plop down and enjoy the ride, watching a dumb film just for the action scenes, for example. What calms me are the things others might consider challenging. A movie that turns on my appreciative brain allows me to turn off the critical one.

Yesterday, my youngest son took me to the new Spider-man movie. I have to say upfront that I do not enjoy superhero movies at all and have seen dozens of them by now, dutifully. But this one, for the first hour, struck me differently. It was a surprisingly melancholy Spider-man film and I was just letting it roll over me. But then, the filmmakers lost their nerve and retreated to fairly common action movie storytelling and my critical brain came back on.

But overall, I have to give the movie credit for at least getting it half right and for reminding me that well made movies are my medicine. So too great music. I’ve never listened to an Adrianne Lenker/Big Thief song and been forced to use my critical brain, which makes me look forward to seeing the band in concert next week.

Yet another social activity with the potential for more social overload — but maybe it will also provide some summertime joy and peace.