Member-only story

Thinking is Garbage

What a waste.

Conor Smyth
3 min readJul 17, 2019
Photo by Gui Spinardi from Pexels

Let’s differentiate.

First, there is thoughtfulness.

The capacity to hold concepts in your head and tilt them around like 3D models; to factor things in; to anticipate consequences; to pick apart assumptions; to delay judgement. It’s not rushing. It’s feeling an idea out.

Second, there is everyday “thinking”. The spinning drum. The poltergeist radio dial. The picking and scratching.

We have too little of the first, and too little of the second. And, worse, when we do the second we usually think we’re doing the first.

This isn’t an argument for dumbness or fashionable “not knowing”.

For the dangers of giving into blind feeling, check out this MAGAhead telling Fox News he’d believe Trump over Christ himself.

We gotta hold onto critical thinking. A scalpel to cut through the glare.

No. I’m talking about the all the lives we live in our head versus the one the live in the world. The sheer disproportionality of it.

Don’t get me wrong, I love a good dwell.

Nothing more satisfying and emotionally self-harming than stewing up a pot of tea and strapping into the time machine. Replaying and relitigating and turning…

--

--

No responses yet