Stillness Is the Key by Ryan Holiday

of a hobby and new forms of interest is therefore a policy of first
importance to a public man,” he wrote. “To be really happy and really
safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must
all be real.”
Churchill was not a particularly good painter (his bricklaying was
often corrected by professionals too), but even a glance at his
pictures reveals how much he enjoyed himself as he worked. It’s
palpable in the brushstrokes. “Just to paint is great fun,” he would
say. “The colors are lovely to look at and delicious to squeeze out.”
Early on, Churchill was advised by a well-known painter never to
hesitate in front of the canvas (that is to say, overthink), and he took
it to heart. He wasn’t intimidated or discouraged by his lack of skill
(only this could explain the audacity it took for him to add a mouse
to a priceless Peter Paul Rubens painting that hung in one of the
prime minister’s residences). Painting was about expression of joy
for Churchill. It was leisure, not work.
Painting, like all good hobbies, taught the practitioner to be
present. “This heightened sense of observation of Nature,” he wrote,
“is one of the chief delights that have come to me through trying to
paint.” He had lived for forty years on planet Earth consumed by his
work and his ambition, but through painting, his perspective and
perception grew much sharper. Forced to slow down to set up his
easel, to mix his paints, to wait for them to dry, he saw things he
would have previously blown right past.
This was a skill that he actively cultivated—increasing his mental
awareness by way of physical exercises. Churchill started going to
museums to look at paintings, then he’d wait a day and try to re-
create them from memory. Or he’d try to capture a landscape he had
seen after he had left it. (This was similar to his habit of reciting
poetry aloud.) “Painting challenged his intellect, appealed to his
sense of beauty and proportion, unleashed his creative impulse,
and... brought him peace,” remarked his lifelong friend Violet
Bonham Carter. It was also, she said, the only thing Churchill ever
did silently. His other daughter, Mary, observed that painting and
manual labor “were the sovereign antidotes to the depressive
element in his nature.” Churchill was happy because he got out of his
own head and put his body to work.