Awhile back I made passing mention of the new age mindfulness movement which recommends that we derail our train of distracted thoughts and concentrate on being "present" in the moment. Here's an example of the approach from Oprah's web-site:

Many of us sustain a high level of mental "noise" so that we won't fully experience the difficult emotions of fear, anger or sadness. Getting still requires being willing to experience these feelings without doing anything in the short run. You don't have to do anything in the stillness except fully acknowledge what you are feeling, without judgment.

That "noise" is our internal monologue which, mercifully, usually preserves us from morbidity, except at 3 a.m. Judith Warner weighed in on the trend last week:

It has dawned on me lately, meditating on the Metro, thoughts silenced so completely that I can hear every page being turned by passengers up and down the car (I am above reading — I am present to myself) that being fully in the moment, all senses turned on, feeling your hands in your lap and the ground under your feet, is a very good way of not being there at all. For me, this is a big part of the charm of the whole thing. I mean, it’s a lot easier to feel a loving connection to others — to the madding crowd, that is — when you’re entirely checked out. ... I’ve also come to wonder if something desirably human is being lost in all this new and improved selfhood. That is to say: an edge. That little bit of raggedness that for some of us is really the heart of what makes us human. Shave that piece off, soften it too mindfully, and I wonder if we don’t leave others out in the cold.