Author: Melissa

It’s a rainy afternoon and H. is home and we are both enjoying the quiet, unhurried interval of an easy weekend at home. I am reading old British crime novels on my Kindle, and hubby is at the other end of our large living room enjoying Raiders of the Lost Ark on our amazingly big, second-hand flat screen TV. Each of us has a sleeping dog at our feet. It is peaceful (once you tune out the movie dialogue) and as I look out the window the sky is white and overcast with thick clouds, and a mist obscures the range opposite, on the other side of our little valley. The rain is coming down at a slow but steady rate. There are pools of water on the ground, it is sodden but the water tanks are not yet quite overflowing.

Tearful as I watched the events unfold in Paris yesterday. In the aftermath, trying to understand why. It is difficult. After the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris earlier this year many people blamed religion. A Foreign Policy writer, Christian Caryl responded in a way which holds truth again today:

The real problem isn’t religion. It’s a deeper psychological failure that afflicts humans of all varieties, religious and not. It’s called “fanaticism” — that eerie quality of single-mindedness that can lead even the intelligent and the educated to believe that the views they hold excuse any form of savagery.

It’s not official yet but some big news at work yesterday. It brought to mind a phrase “best laid plans”, which out of interest, originated from a Robert Burns’ poem To a Mouse. It tells of how he, while ploughing a field, upturned a mouse’s nest. The resulting poem is an apology to the mouse:

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane [you aren’t alone]
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft a-gley, [often go awry]
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promised joy.

www.phrases.org.au

I learned about critical thinking during my short stint with university level study… sometimes though, I feel a little simple-minded in my consumption of ideas… for example when empathy joins hands with reason and I see both sides of an argument. This makes rather a muddle of my thoughts sometimes, and is frustrating as well when I can’t seem to align myself to a particular position.

It was interesting to hear this from a writer named Malcolm Gladwell (courtesy of brainpickings.org):

The notion that the only way you can critically engage with a person’s ideas is to take a shot at them, is to be openly critical — this is actually nonsense. Some of the most effective ways in which you deal with someone’s idea are to treat them completely at face value, and with an enormous amount of respect. That’s actually a faster way to engage with what they’re getting at than to lob grenades in their direction…

Imagine this approach in parliament! This is so very “zen” and I absolutely love this attitude. Malcolm goes on to say:

I feel I change my mind all the time. And I sort of feel that’s your responsibility as a person, as a human being — to constantly be updating your positions on as many things as possible. And if you don’t contradict yourself on a regular basis, then you’re not thinking.

I have to agree. The human mind and the thoughts it generates are organic things, which change and adapt over time. If thoughts and ideas do not continue to grow and develop we are just operating on auto-pilot.