Thinking is difficult work


      Thanks to my friend, Carl Rangen, for posting this on Facebook. I would bet that he is going to get a lot of laughing faces on his post, but this is really a very serious observation.  Carl Jung might have had a smirk on his face when he said it, but, if you've read any of his works, you know how serious this really is.  

     Thinking really is difficult.  Most humans only use 10-15% of their brain.  Most don't think because it is so much easier to regurgitate what the three social powers tell us. It is more emotionally comfortable not to have to figure anything out on our own. Thinking requires starting without any preconceptions, ignoring the social pressures to draw a particular conclusion, studying the facts (real facts), coming up with your own hypotheses (generally more than one is best), and testing those hypotheses until you feel you have the right answer or the best possible answer. 

     Thinking is best when practiced under the right circumstances. Of course, when confronted with the need to think we generally can't say "please give me a few days to go into the wilderness so I can think clearly."

     Some years ago I was reading a book about meditation. The author was saying how he had complained to his teacher about the upsetting journey he had to make into the city by train each day - the noise, the chaos, standing and hanging onto a strap. His teacher told him that it was actually possible to learn to meditate during the journey. It sounds impossible but the young Buddhist learned how and that skill served him well in many different situations. 

    Thinking is similar.  Chaos, noise, social pressure all seem to keep us from thinking, BUT thinking is a learned skill.   I have no idea how one measures how much of our brains we are using, but I would venture to guess that the more we practice thinking the more of our brain we use. That would then help us improve our thinking skills.  A win-win situation.

     Thinking is difficult but the results are a whole lot better than being judgmental based on what you are told by someone wanting to dominate and manipulate you.

#thinking, #CarlJung, #RVance-blog
















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