Quality of thought

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Whenever I move on to something new in my life, I do so whole-heartedly.  I don’t think this is a bad thing.  On the contrary.  Unfortunately, it does sometimes tend to find me with my back to some doors as I wrench heartily on the doorknob in front of me.  In short, I’ve been guilty of a kind of lifeway monoculture.  I get so thoroughly into one thing that I forget the things I was neck deep in before.

Sometimes I actively turn away from something because my experience or reasoning has shown it to be false in some measurable way.  Sometimes I just forget - and the thing becomes difficult to recall.  Like the memory of your fifth birthday that you can only remember when your mom is showing you photos, and even then things are fuzzy.

Lately, I’ve been concerned with my quality of thought.  All my life, I’ve been learning how to think.  Sometimes it’s been a very overt process, like in college.  Sometimes, it’s been the ol’ school of hard knocks.  What I’m yearning for now is the quality of thinking I developed in college, studying philosophy.  While I’m an opponent of philosophy for philosophy’s sake (being in medicine sort of obligates me in that direction) I do find the quality, depth and simple voraciousness of thought in my old college department to be something worth treasuring.

There’s something there - as there is in the principle behind the Awareness Project over at Deepest Health - that is desperately needed.  Particularly now, particularly here, particularly by me.  I’m not quite sure how to go back to developing that kind of thought, but a recent conversation with a friend sparked something in my mind.

It has something to do with practice, with method, with rhythm.  But, it also has something to do with going outside one’s discipline.  About engaging with things one wouldn’t normally engage with.  Some of my difficulty diving deeply into Chinese medicine might have to do with the fact that my brain just WORKS better if I’m dipping into lots of different pots.  So, jettisoning all my work and interest in academic Western Philosophy may actually be hindering, not helping, my ability to be the best in my chosen profession.  Going to the ballet might not be superfluous, but necessary.

It’s important to prune.  But, not too much.

To this end, a number of things.  None of them completely formed - but this placeholder to say: “I remember.  I think I understand.”

Eric