Waiting for Godot

Estragon: I tell you I wasn't doing anything.
Vladimir: Perhaps you weren't. But it's the way of doing it that counts, the way of doing it,
if you want to go on living.

Throughout the entire play they are doing "nothing", at least they are not doing anything productive. Though they are doing "nothing" they are still thinking. Thought and reason are major ideas that Beckett questions in Waiting for Godot. Even though estragon was wasn't doing anything, the way he should be going about it still requires thought and reason.
However, thinking is what seems to keep them existing or "living" as Vladimir puts it. They can't really do nothing, they are trapped by thought. They're bored, they are waiting...in this case for Godot. Estragon comes to this realization saying, "All my lousy life I've crawled about in this mud!" He his stuck in his own thoughts. Estragon depicts the result of thinking when he says, "We always find something, eh Didi, to give us the impression we exist?" I believe this is a major line because Beckett is questioning thought and existence of the human intellect. Thought it seems only gives the intellect the impression of existing.

Finally, on page 91 Vladimir depicts the horrid truth of thought and reason. He says, "All I know is that the hours are long under these conditions, and constrain us to beguile them with proceedings which - how shall I say - which may at first sight seem reasonable, until they become a habit. You may say it is to prevent our reason from foundering. No doubt. But has it not long been straying in the night without end of the abyssal depths? That's what I sometimes wonder. You follow my reasoning?" Their proceedings, their thoughts seem reasonable, but they aren't. Then, in true comic fashion he asks if Estragon has followed yet more of his useless reasoning. The portrayal here is the fact that one cannot try not to think without pondering how to accomplish such means. Thus, it defeats his purpose. In thinking that one should shot thinking one is still trapped in the act of reason and thought.

Beckett's answer to freedom from thought, especially meaningless thought, is there is no escape. Wait to die, then maybe, maybe you can stop, but probably not.