think
Pause, reflect, consider, reconsider, and then think about it. Cogitate a while. Then come back and think about it.
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A friend of mine told me that he rarely thinks. This isn't a dummy I'm talking about. This is what anyone would call a bright guy, a veritable smarty pants, someone with an IQ in the neighborhood of 140 (possibly on a good day). He said that during the day his mind is on hold, that there are no thoughts filtering through it, beyond the basics, the kinds of activities that don't require thoughts, like going to the refrigerator, wondering what looks good, going to the TV, wondering what's on, looking outside, it looks cloudy. No thoughts, no wondering, no imagining, no strategizing, no brainstorming, not even recollection or memory. I could hardly understand what he was talking about. "So what is going on inside your head, a dial tone?" He thought about it. "Yes, pretty much. A dial tone." You probably don't know what I'm writing about. Thinking. What in the world is thinking? Everyone thinks. You have to think. I mean to live is to think, right? Or are you just going over the prescribed thoughts, what people tell you to think, what you see flashed on the TV, whether subliminally or out right there in the open. Your prejudices. Your traditions. Why? Why ask why? Another friend of mine told me she thinks all the time, such thoughts as, I wonder what the weather is like today, or am I thirsty for water or juice, or my tummy has been rumbling, hmmm, I wonder if it could be something more serious? But is this thinking? Certainly, at a rudimentary level, it is thinking, as thoughts move about in the mind. Nothing that works up brain sweat, the mind flexing its muscles, pondering, considering, REASONING. Think about a parable. It is a small story, something that attempts to capture a big issue, and reduce the thing to a small enough gem that you can hold in your hand. You can take the gem and look at its facets. On the surface, it is a gem, tiny. But when you think about it, suddenly it becomes much more, it expands and expounds in your hand, it becomes huge, and without seeing the actual issue you suddenly understand the actual issue. That is a parable. Look at a big thing in a small way. But the small way can be very, very deep. Now, if you read the previous paragraph about what a parable is, and you understood what you read, then you were actively thinking. You were reasoning, which leads to understanding. You visualized a big thing being reduced to the size of a gem that you hold in your hand. Your mind imagined something that on the surface seems preposterous, ridiculous, absurd, and yet with a minimal amount of thinking you perceive the real meaning, and it is not ding dong merrily on high. It made SENSE. If I told you to imagine a long white narrow room, I want you to think while you picture it in your mind. At one end of the narrow room is a rocking chair. In the chair is a smiling, little old lady knitting and rocking. At the other end of the room is a hulking biker type, all in black leather, leaning against a bar, with a shot glass in front of him. As you enter the door in the very mid-point between the two ends of the room a voice whispers to you: "Be very careful. Someone in this room wants to kill you. But first they must deceive you." You stand just inside the door and look to your left. There is the little old lady smiling at you. You look to the right. The hulking biker scowls at you. Now, without thinking, you will head for the little old lady. No danger there, correct? But think. The voice said deception. Who do you think has a better chance of deceiving you? The little old lady or the hulking biker? The reason the little old lady is smiling is because her knitting needles are poisoned with the most deadly toxin known to science, and they have served her well, these needles. In fact, this is not a little old lady, at all. But a highly trained assassin, practiced and versed in the art of deception and disguise, and his record at hoodwinking the people coming through the door is almost 100 percent. The hulking biker? He is a good guy. He wants to help. But time after time he sees the "little old lady" stick a knitting needle in another fool, another one deceived, and he has finally turned to drink to attempt to wash away the bad taste in his mouth. How can people be so stupid? Why won't they THINK? Even when warned that they will be deceived they don't bother to think about what "deception" really means (of course, a high percentage of the lame-brains have convinced themselves that they cannot be deceived, so they never see the danger coming). Think about it: “To say of what is, that it is not, or of what is not, that it is, is false; while to say of what is, that it is, and of what is not, that it is not, is true.” - Aristotle Does that seem confusing? Think it through, block by block. If you say something is truth, such as that snow is cold, that is true. If you say snow is warm, that is a lie. But the way Aristotle said it, it makes you think. Make it a constant practice. THINK. Question things. Think things through. Wonder. Imagine. Concentrate. Brainstorm with comical ideas, have fun with your thoughts, but think. Every day. Think. “Truth
that has merely been learned is like an artificial limb, a false tooth,
a waxen nose; it adheres to us only because it is put on. But truth
acquired by thought of our own is like a natural limb; it alone really
belongs to us.” - Arthur Schopenhauer
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