A few weeks ago I wrote this post about how we could all be great thinkers, if we only believe we are capable of great thinking. I still believe this to be true. However, the guidance I gave on how to become a better thinker was a little shallow. I am still working on the answer, but am still confident that one piece of the puzzle is to probe ideas with questions. To use our inquisitiveness like a scalpel to reveal un-ulcered thinking or putrefying assumptions.
I came upon another piece of the better thinking puzzle a while ago, and I can’t shake the feeling that it’s very important. In this School of Life article, a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson captures a lot of what we miss when it comes to important thinking.
In the minds of geniuses, we find – once more – our own neglected thoughts.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
What Emerson tells us is that being a genius doesn’t involve grandiose or magical thoughts. In fact, the difference between us and great thinkers is that the great thinker takes the time to consider ideas and thoughts we gladly neglect or discard. These thoughts are tiring to contemplate; they take effort to work through. And if we’re honest with ourselves, most of us would rather take the path of least resistance and think about what to watch on TV instead.
The thoughts we avoid
We rarely notice the thoughts we evade. The chances of success at evasion are improved if we don’t acknowledge the thought in the first place. And the reason for evading the thoughts all come down to avoiding discomfort. We don’t want to consider or share ideas that will make us seem strange or abnormal to others. Where as geniuses take the time to capture their odd ideas and use questions to cleave and cut and then polish their thoughts into diamonds.
Thus, better thinking requires courage. Courage to confront yourself and the things you’re thinking about. Many of us have thoughts and ideas that we wouldn’t dream to share with others and sometimes, we won’t admit them to ourselves. Thoughts that prove to us that we are indeed bad or disgusting or perverted.
And then the hardest part comes after we’ve had the courage to think about our most challenging ideas. The sharing of the things we have been thinking about. History is littered with great thinkers sharing insightful ideas only to be ostracised, persecuted or killed. One of the most tragic such thinkers is Ignaz Semmelweis.
Semmelweis was a doctor at Vienna General Hospital’s First Obstetrical Clinic, and through astute observation realised that hand washing by doctors drastically reduced the mortality rate in obsterical clinics. His ideas were rejected by the medical community. Doctors couldn’t accept the idea that they were responsible for the deaths of their patients. Furthermore, it didn’t help that Semmelweis couldn’t explain why hand washing prevented patients dying at the hands of doctors – germs theory and hygiene around germ theory only started gaining acceptance 5 years after his death.
Semmelweis eventually had a nervous breakdown and was committed to an asylum by his colleagues in 1865. He died 2 weeks later after a wound he received during a beating by the guards at the asylum turned gangrenous.
Consider the fear and self-loathing Semmelweis, a doctor trying to help others, would have felt knowing that by not washing his hands he was responsible for most of his patients’ deaths. Looking at his own profession as a possible culprit was the idea many others would have avoided. Having the strength and conviction to to come out and tell everyone else that he, and his colleagues, people he had to work with every day, had been killing their patients, that’s what makes a genius. Great thinkers are brave.
It is all about mindfulness – again
Semmelweis would have had to have been present and mindful of what was happening around him when the idea of bloody doctors’ hands first started nagging him. He knew the mortality rate of the doctors’ wards was 3 times that of the midwives’ wards. A moment of presence probably led to the observation that the doctors have bloodied hands from having seen other patients, while the midwives didn’t. The start of great ideas come back to being mindful, observant, in the moment.
It keeps coming up. Be aware, aware of yourself and the moment you find yourself in. Aware of your thoughts and your feelings. Great thinking, wisdom and true knowledge start with self-knowledge.
Socrates, was famously asked what all philosophical commandments can be boiled down to. His answer was, “know thyself.” Variations of this idea have travelled with us through the ages. Knowing ourselves unlocks our thinking and can deliver us from suffering. Self knowledge helps us see the world as it really is.
And yet, this is an action we avoid more than any other. It is painful to see ourselves as we really are. We are flawed, selfish, and afraid. However, if we can muster the courage to examine and question our beliefs and assumptions about ourselves, on the other side of the stories we tell ourselves, our greatest achievements lie waiting for us.