This chapter adopts a longitudinal perspective on the evolution of activities of thinking in different domains, following people’s engagements; it thus gives a glimpse into the evolution of pleasures of thinking in the course of life. First, it examines specific trajectories of engagements and shows how the pleasure of thinking may have played a key role in people’s choice to maintain and pursue an interest, chosen or accidentally met, for instance in gardening or in billiards. Second, it retraces the trajectories of thinking and their pleasure in long-term, lifecourse commitments, for instance in the lives of Kurt Lewin and Henri Tajfel. Finally, based on recent interviews and observational data, the chapter explores the development of the pleasure of thinking in older people.

This concluding chapter sums up the main findings of this exploration of the pleasures of thinking. If there is something that can be fundamentally playful and enjoyable in thinking, alone or with others, then our theories of mind need to be built in such a way that affects are already part of what makes our thoughts thinkable. Such a way of understanding thinking also grounds it in our bodies, our relationships, and the world in which we live. Second, the chapter questions for the last time the implications of this pleasure: is all pleasure in thinking good? And what about unpleasure? This calls for ethical reflection, which eventually leads to a defence of pleasure in thinking. Third, the chapter explores some implications of this stance and, in particular, directions for promoting the pleasure of thinking. Finally, it emphasises the contribution of these propositions to a sociocultural psychology of the lifecourse and indicates how this could be further explored.