Thinking And Non Thinking

Whoever he may be, and wherever he may be placed, the man who thinks becomes a light and a power.

Henry George
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Do we really think? Or do we just think we're thinking. Do we think that what we think we're thinking is really thinking? Try saying that three times fast.

Physicists tell us that the mere act of observing a phenomenon will cause it to alter its behavior. Is it also true about our thinking? A good actor will be thinking his character's thoughts while at the same time thinking his own. It's a tricky juggling act particularly if observing his thoughts will change them, which they often do.

The philosopher Martin Heidegger wrote a book, which was a series of lectures entitled "What Is Called Thinking?" In it he writes "What is most thought provoking, is this - that we are still not thinking."

That brings up the previous question. Do we think we are thinking when in fact we are not? And why not? Is it due solely to our ignorance of what thinking is, or is there something about thinking itself that prevents itself? As absurd as it may seem, is it possible that the act of thinking about thinking will prevent us from thinking? That is one of the Rubik's cubes of existentialism. What does a bubble look like from the inside?

Some clever artists have designed pieces that present the same paradox. i remember one that was set up at the front of a building in New York. It was a tunnel which a spectator could walk through. From the outside it had unmistakable transparent plastic walls which ran from top to bottom as a normal wall, But when people were in the tunnel they were clearly putting their hands through the wall. I entered and found that the walls were in fact curved out so that they were impossible to touch. It was an illusion but it told a story about how we look at things and hence how we think about them. One wanted to enter the tunnel and touch the wall, but the wall prevented being touched.

Heidegger also wrote "What must be thought about, turns away from man. It withdraws from him. But how can we have the least knowledge of something that withdraws from the beginning, how can we even give it a name?"

What an illusive thing is thinking? There are many different was to think, or to think we are thinking. There is letting the mind wander, which is not really thinking. I have a quote somewhere that says the reason why people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory. There is rampant imagination, which is close to letting the mind wander, but which sometimes leads into dark and gnarly trails in the jungle. There is structured imagination such as an artist or designer will use. But the end of that is not thinking, but some sort of product. There is the thinking that is the pondering over someone else's thoughts, such as I am doing right now. Reason is a good use of one's mind but is it genuine thinking? Lastly, and most rare, is original, inspired thinking. That is thinking that has no rules and whose results are the most illusive of all. But if the more we think the more thinking withdraws from us how will we ever know not only how to think but what thinking itself really is.

The possible answer Heidegger provides is to see the withdrawing of thinking from the thinking man as also a "drawing with" or a pointing towards. We pursue real thinking and its meaning in our lives because we need to. The physicist may never catch up with the object's changes as he observes it. But will we ever catch up to true immutable thinking? I don't know. But I'm thinking about it.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
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WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)

What was the most significant event that happened in 2010?

dbdacoba@aol.com

Only 6 responses so far

I await your answer.
DB
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Where Am I Going?

Try early in life to find an unobtainable objective.

George Wald
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Every day I make a list of all the things I want to do tomorrow. Included on the list is making a list for the next day. Some of the things on my list for today are simple things, like trimming my fingernails and cleaning the kitchen counter. Among the more serious and complicated things is writing my journal for the next day, which I am doing right now.

My life was not caotic and undisciplined before I started making lists. It was merely that I would become so involved with what I was doing I would forget about other important things. So now they're on the list (if I remember to put them there, that is). The problem with the list is that now I feel as if I have all these obligations. I never accomplish everything on the list so they get moved over to the next day. It isn't that I feel guilty about it. It's more a matter of feeling that I have to be busy all the time. A polite but insistent imp in my conscience is saying "What are you doing now?" If the answer is "I'm waiting for the coffee water to boil" then the little devil asks if I should find some small task to do in the meantime, wash a dish, trim my moustache. If I prefer to sit and think about something, why should I feel guilty?

I have come to believe and appreciate two important things. One is that thinking is what a challenged and treacherous life is all about. "Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much, such man are dangerous>" Shakespeare. Yes, I am dangerous. I think "too much." I am armed and dangerous. Armed with ideas and observations that upset the mental apple carts, my own and others.

Also in my bag of beliefs is the view that the journey of life is an endless one because the destination is never reached. I did a play in which one character spoke about working many years and saving up money to buy a house, then when you buy the house and move into it where are you? That existential question was never answered by the playwright.

If you take the A Train going south from Manhattan you can eventually reach Far Rockaway, one of the distant out posts of New York City. But if you get off at the last stop and walk east a couple of blocks you will be in the town of Inwood, New York. It's in Nassau County, not part of New York City.

Being a northeasterner I am used to towns and villages abutting each other, even across state lines. When I hitchhiked to California in 1960 I was astonished at how far I had to go to reach the next town. Once past the big river everything stretched out to pasture, farmland, desert and open spaces. When evening came and I was walking I would yearn to see lights ahead, hoping for a diner, a truck stop or any sliver of civilization. I had a very clear sense of destination. Just get somewhere.

As I think (too much) about these things I wonder if there is ever any real destination at all. Life is unfinished business, another task to do, another meal to be prepared, another day to plan, another visit, another thing to learn, another discovery, another realization, another destination on the long walk. If we finally get to heaven we will probably have things to do, lists to make, places to go and things to think about. I hope so.

DB - The Vagabond
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AUTUMN QUESTION

(This is not a contest.)

At what event of the past do you wish you could be present? Why?

8 responses so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.
DB
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Dig We Must

The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.

Edwin Schlossberg
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Anyone who is looking for quick and easy answers to the paradox of life is in for a shock. Look to a favorite book to tell you what to think and you're looking for trouble. Among the philosophers that I enjoy reading are Nietzsche, Hegel and Heidegger. Those are men with strong opinions strongly and clearly stated. What's difficult is following the thinking processes that brought them to their opinions. Nietzsche stated that the purpose of philosophy is not to tell you what to think but to get youto think for yourself. A good philosophy teacher would point out the observations, logic and finger posts of a philosophers thought and ask if there is a fault line running through it. He would ask if you agree or disagree, and if so, in either case, why?

It isn't necessary for everyone in the world to be a philosopher or even a reader of philosophy as I am (a nutcase if there ever was one). But it is necessary for people to think. I've written about this topic so often that I'm bored with it, as you also probably are. I have a quote here someplace that I might use someday which says that the reason people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.

The sad thing is that there is no result of honest applied thought available on most of our TV and radio programs, from news reporters, politicians and preachers, tal;k show hosts. No one is entertained by mindfulness.

Great music is a glamorized experience of original deep thinking. Listen carefully and find your way through Debussy's La Mer, You can't do it on one hearing. Only a genius can do that.

Why is thinking like digging in the back yard? Because you might be surprised at what you find there. Carefully study Da Vinci's Last Supper. Forget for a time it's religious significations and look through it with an open mind. Can you find the knife?

Read any Shakespearian play. The story, the characters and Shakespeare's own amazing intellect are so completely bound harmoniously together that it is easy to miss the profound wisdom as it flashes by.

My life changed considerably one day when I discovered that not only was I opinionated but that there was so little thought that supported my opinions. Facts are one thing, ideas are something else. Most people want to just deal in facts and leave the ideas alone. "Just the facts, ma'am." They want to know the what and the how but not the why.

The amazing thing is that there is an infinitetude of ideas, music, poetry, art, inventions, systems, philosophies, programs and solutions still existing in the mind waiting to be discovered. Writers write to lead us, through the inadequacy of words, to the places where those discoveries can be made. A good writer provides the back yard and the shovel.

DB - The Vagabond
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SUMMER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

Who are the 2 (two) most important people alive today? Why?

3 responses so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.
DB
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What Do You Think

My mind is a garden. My thoughts are the seeds.
My harvest will be either flowers or weeds.

Mel Weldon
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"Think when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;"
(Shakespeare)
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"Oh, no. Not another acting lesson." Yes, another acting lesson. So pay attention.

One Autumn day I was talking with a young actor, just beginning his career. He was asking me about the acting experience. We were sitting outside and the ground was littered with brightly colored leaves. I picked one up, a particularly beautiful one, and I told him tht in order to be an artist we have to create something as beautiful as that leaf, and that nature does it by the gezillions every year and then just throws them away. The point of the lesson was that art, just like science, depends upon natural law.

When you go to watch a play you are watching a story unfold. And the story is being told through the actions of real live characters. The actor loans his body and his voice to the character he is portraying and those are the things you see and hear. But there is something else, also on loan to the character, which you don't see and that is the actors thoughts, the freedom to think the way his character thinks. You don't see that thought process going on. You only see the results.

There is clearly also a life lesson involved here. It is very difficult to know what the result of our own thinking is going to be, most of the time. The actor knows ahead of time what the result is so he can organize his thinking to fit that unfolding. But for us in real life we can only guess or assume that we are thinking correctly and that our thoughts will bring about a harmonious result. When we get an inharmonious result and end up with something we didn't want or expect we can blame the economy, the weather, other people or "circumstances over which we had no control." After we've spent a lot of time and energy doing that, we inevitably get back to the conclusion that we weren't thinking right to begin with. In the major and minor events of life how we think has a certain effect on the results. The one thing no one else has any control over is the freedom to think for ourselves, no matter what. Some well known writers composed novels in their heads when they were incarcerated in some prison for a long time without access to pen and paper, Other prisoners just disintegrated into weeds.

One of the grand unnoticeable facts of life is that we have the freedom to choose what we are going to think about. But with that freedom comes another fact, that what we think about is planting seeds for a future harvest of either good or bad. That's natural law.

DB - The Vagabond
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Inimical Instructions 6/05/09

Don't let anyone tell you that it doesn't matter what you think. Of course it matters. Above all else thinking matters the most.

DB - The Vagabond
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Greetings
______________________
Things that must be written, must be written.

I made an appointment and went to see a very wise man, a well known provider of good advice and positive, practical solutions to life's problems and difficulties, My problem was that I felt I had no purpose and direction in my life, that I was aimlessly working as an actor with no reason nor objective, that I really didn't have any value in the world. In response to his questions I told him about growing up.

My father died when I was 4 years old. They never told me that he died. All they said was that he wasn't coming back. My mother, my grandmother, my sister and my brother; none of them told me. They say that I cried for many days afterward. For the next 8 years I expected him to return. The phone would ring, there was a knock on the door, it might be my father. I would look out the windows of cars and buses to see if he was walking down the street. Why did he abandon me? It must be my fault. I wanted to find him, to apologize and bring him back home. Finally, at the age of about 12 years, I accepted that he was in truth never coming back. Why didn't they tell me? Why wasn't I valuable or important enough to be told the truth?

The relationship with my mother was adversarial, My brother and sister left shortly after that, but when they were around they either ignored me or were critical of me. There was no love. I was not liked at home.

I grew up without my father's wisdom, advice, judgment, encouragement or approval.
I missed him. Ironically, it was at my mother's funeral, 40 years later, that I could grieve for him. At the cemetary I was placed in a chair directly over my father's grave and for the first time I read his tombstone. He was a young man when he went, only 53. He was a Lieutenant/Colonel in the U.S. Army. I wanted,with all my heart, to know the guy and wanted him to know me, his son. I wept.

"There is a sacredness in tears" Washington Irving said

As I spoke on with that wise man, I told him about the influences on my life after my father's death. How I had been criticized and minimized and disapproved of by everyone around me. How I had fought to reject other people's opinions of me and how I was trying to establish in my own thinking a positive structure of self-respect and self-approval but that I was having trouble doing it and needed help. Then this wise man, the purveyor of positive advice and well being said to me "Well, fortunately it makes no difference what you think."

How, after listening to my tale of deprivation and woe, could this wise man, this guru of positive thinking, this friend of mankind, this generous and compassionate dispenser of good, sound advice tell me that it makes no difference what I think?

I left his office believing him, and his words sank down into the very bottom of my being. After losing my father and not told why, after the scorn and resentment from members of my family and to be told it doesn't matter what I think, I realized what I was: a useless thumb on the hand of the world, a worthless appendage that needed to be amputated, something taking up space for no reason. As someone once said to me "I don't understand why you're still alive."

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made:
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange,
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:
Hark! now I hear them, ding-dong, bell.

Shakespeare

In my mid 50s, when I had outlived my father, I began to understand some things. I began to put some pieces together and throw out some others. I may be a worthless and annoying hunk of junk as far as the world is concerned, I thought, but I was still alive, I was working, supporting myself and entertaining people. And if there was only one thing I knew it was that it did matter what I thought. My thinking was just as valid and important to the world as anyone else's. Thinking matters the most. And one who thinks is not a useless appendage, taking up space. That's something my father might have taught me when I was just a boy.

Shakespeare also wrote "There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."

Even today, at 70, I miss my father. I miss what we might have meant to each other. I want the love only a father can give. I want the advice of someone who cares about me. I want the companionship of the man I can look up to and admire. I want the words of encouragement and approval from the man who is grateful I was born and is glad I'm alive. I want my Dad.

DB
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Xenophilic Xylograph 4/02/09

You can't bury your anger, but what you can do, is bury the thoughts that cause the anger.

DB - The Vagabond
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Hey, good buddy.
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I'm a great believer in the power of thought. It's a subject I seem to preach all the time and try to practice. Why is thought so important? Because it precedes everything. A good attitude is essential to a happy life. But even a good attitude is gained primarily by the way we think. It's the same with emotions, especially strong ones. And notice how much our behavior is managed by the way we think.

One of the most interesting things to me about thought is that while we may notice ourselves feeling and doing, we don't often notice ourselves thinking. However, if thought is the motivation for what we feel and do, isn't it obviously important to know what it is that we are thinking? I have a quote somewhere from someone which reads "Think before you think," The astonishing thing to me is that we actually have a choice about what and how we think.

You can improve your life by the way you think. Positive thinkers have been telling us that for a long time and in many ways. But I have approached that from a different draw bridge: the theatre, acting. There are a bunch of slogans to describe what acting is: "Acting is doing something." "Acting is reacting." "Acting is behaving." "Acting is living in the moment." Etc. Now I tend to tell young actors that acting is Natural Law, and, of course, they don't understand.

I was doing a long role in a two character play and when it wasn't developing well I had to sit down with the script and determine why not. The character made a lot of personal changes during the play. I began making a list of what he was probably thinking at certain places in the script. I hit upon some thought patterns that were very close to my own. In rehearsal I found myself thinking those thoughts and not about doing a play. The scenes in which I did that were progressing very well. Then I realized it wasn't because I knew what the character was thinking, it was because I was thinking what the character was thinking. So I went back to the script and defined what his thoughts would be in all the other places. In doing those scenes I chose to think what the character was thinking and the results were amazing. I learned a great lesson about acting. But an even greater lesson was that we can really choose what to think. Not opinion, not conclusions, not frame of reference, but actual thinking, a dialogue of the mind.

Why should we do that? The human mind is like a garden or a farm. If we know what we want to have grow in it, we have to plant the proper seeds. And if thought is the precedent to everything, then the seeds we plant will bring us the life we want. It's Natural Law.

DB
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May you have joy to spare today.
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