Just A Thought

Thinking takes many different forms, and a poet I have heard of once said that thinking is not always what we think it is, but we usually think that thinking means sitting down and being serious with a cup of tea and thoughtful, but often thinking happens when our life is a mess and busy and confused, but we still manage to think and have ideas and opinions although sometimes they are really stupid or lovable and here comes a dog.

Someone just asked me (don’t ask me why), What is everyday thinking? That made me think, but I answered thus: Everyday thinking is, Do I need to go shopping? Shall I wash my clothes? But we think about these things only briefly and it’s not what we think of as thinking. Come on -- is it? This kind of thinking seems to be only a small part of our day and we don’t really think we are thinking about it. It’s not like when we have to engage in critical thinking, if we ever do, the kind of thinking that’s like me now thinking about what I am writing now, and we have to stop and put everything else out of our mind and concentrate on the subject, and be as rational and focussed as possible, which actually I’m not because I’m chatting on the internet with a couple of people while I do this. On the other hand, if we want to be creative, if we ever do, we can let our imagination go and do anything we want to do, pretty much, though there are limits, though I have no idea what those limits might be. This is still thinking, I think, but the amount we control it varies: we can have great ideas, perhaps, or not so great ones, and we maybe don’t know where they come from but then we can have other ideas come rushing along in their wake like horses on fire and think rationally about them and develop them, not like perhaps a footballer who has a half-baked idea for a story and doesn’t work it out and become a famous novelist.

The same someone also asked me how to think, because he is a bit of a dope, and I answered him thus, somewhat without hope and also somewhat not knowing what the hell I was talking about, which I think you have already figured. I said, because I like the sound of my own voice, Here are some instructions on how to think:

1) First, everyday thinking. Are your clothes dirty? Are there no clean socks in your drawer? Think about it! You may need to do some washing. But how do you think about it? That’s a good question. I’m going to have to think about it, but after I’ve done my washing.

2) Second, critical thinking. This is much easier, or at least it feels much easier if you are not being too critical about it.  When you’re thinking critically you have to analyse the structure and make up of your subject and balance objectivity and subjectivity in your decision making, the way I did when I got married all those times and divorced all those times and had all those love affairs and then there was the arrest and the driving ban… anyway, you have to concentrate fully on the subject and examine ideas from every angle. (A bit of me understood what I just said.)

3) Third, creative thinking, which I once heard described as a bit of a bugger. This can appear to be free and undisciplined because the ideas may be new and original and even perhaps break some rules of, for example, writing or decorating the living room or sculpturing (a word which, surprisingly, my spellchecker is allowing) or music or curling or basketball, but the best creative thinking (as if I know what that is) combines freedom of expression with the discipline of critical thinking, because the great creative artists work very hard (yawn) to make sure that their work will withstand the best (yawn) critical thinking – in other words, they make something from what might be nothing, but is it "nothing"? They also (perhaps) know their craft, and combine craft with originality and freedom of idea to (yawn) create something that is strong and lasting. I need to have a drink now.

In conclusion, which is perhaps the end of all things, I used to think that thinking was something not worth thinking about but having thought about it I think it is worth thinking about and I think that having thought about it I am now going to have to think about it some more. I need another drink, but I think I am giving up drink so I will have an apple, and if not an apple something I think is very much like one.