Sunday, April 8, 2012

Puck on... Thinking


You seem quiet.  Have I upset you?

No.  Just got me thinking.

Dangerous, but not entirely undesirable.  The importance of thinking is whether or not said thinking is actually leading you anywhere.

Most of the time, humans aren’t thinking about anything at all.  When they are thinking it’s usually about nothing important.  If they are thinking about anything important, it usually involves a lot of wrong ideas about it.  And even if they are thinking about something important and they aren’t on the wrong track entirely, bogged down with misconceptions and outright lies, assuming they have even a modicum of rightness in their thinking they usually fail at one simple point: it’s invariably self-concerned.

I’d like to take credit for most of that, but I shouldn’t.  It’s really too easy.  You throw a few distractions here and there.  You humans are practically begging for it.  No, I understate, you are begging for it.  You are just begging to be distracted, to have those big, knobby questions put on the back burner or taken away entirely.  You don’t want to consider them, and if you are at all of the habit, as most of you are, you will pawn them off at the first chance and move on to something much less difficult and infinitely less important.

Then there are the real thinkers.  Or who call themselves such.  Who like to deal with the big issues, or the issues they consider big.  They are, of course, continuously astonished that no one else considers them important, and whatever time not spent with the issue is spent trying to convince people that it is an issue or complaining that most people “just don’t get it.”  Oh, how you love to feel superior.

As for that last bit.  The promising few who actually see how the world works.  It is their sin, the thorn in their sides that they always see it from their perspective.  I suppose they can’t be blamed.  (When has that ever stopped anyone.)  It’s altogether natural.  You naturally consider the universe through your own little umwelt.  The lens made up of all your little traits, memories, biases, experiences, habits, personalities and blind spots.  Most people don’t realize it, of course.  Even those that do miss the obvious: that if they have one so does everyone else.

One should wonder what would happen if everyone realized that everyone else was seeing the world their own way.  One should wonder if even one person fully came to terms with that fact.

“Muddling.”  That’s what a predecessor of mine would call it.  The linchpin strategy of my kind for you.  I must agree with him.  For the most part.  The rabble and horde need little else.  But the experienced hunter has many weapons at his disposal.  The expert knows when to switch from one to another.  Ah, but the master knows how to use them all at the same time.

Are you getting any of this?  We haven’t discussed it, but I do hate to repeat myself.

I’m listening.  I was just thinking.

So I observed.

And I think you’re right about death.

So glad to hear you’ve come around.

But not in the way you’re thinking.

Oh… this should be good.

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