I think that thinking is a designed process. By this, I mean that thinking is not done in a vacuum. You do not think about a subject or idea alone. You have to think with different concepts and ideas. You have to engage a concept or idea with another idea or concept.
I think that thinking is not worrying. Many of us equate thinking with worrying and so we miss the purpose of great thinking. We just often stare into space or void believing that answers will come from nowhere. When it doesn't, as it never does, we become a mess through worrying.
I do think that we can think with words. We think using questions. We think using information. We think with pictures. We think with numbers. We think with data. We think using maps and graphs.
Words are articles or pieces of information that we use to validate words to get a better, deeper or clearer insight about words.
Let's take a quote from Albert Einstein: "Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions."
The first thing a right-thinking mind would do is to x-ray these words piece by piece. It's the same thing a teacher would do. A teacher would ask, "What do you think about these words?"
You want to ponder what imagination is. You want to ponder preview and life's coming attractions. This process should awaken something in you. It is resonance.
Those words create a certain picture in your mind. You may think that with great imagination, you can have a clear image or picture of what is yet to be. In other words, you can imagine some things to reality.
Let's see this thought by Coach John Wooden: "Make each day your masterpiece."
This sets you thinking about how you must be your best every day. If you truly engage with those words, it would take a hold of your mind and take you on a personal trip of self-engagement. It can cause a shift within you and affect your words and actions.
The words, "A man's life does not consist of the abundance of what he has," spoken by Jesus; if you accept and engage with them should spark deep levels of thinking that could shape your behaviour and build your character.
This is because words have life; words are spirits; words create. The right words can support action to influence others positively.
These words by Ray Dalio from his book, "Principles", "Don't mistake possibilities for probabilities," is another one we want to consider.
Dalio explains what he means: "Anything is possible. It's the probabilities that matter. Everything must be weighed in terms of its likelihood and prioritized. People who can accurately sort probabilities from possibilities are generally strong at "practical thinking"; they're the opposite of the "philosopher" types who tend to get lost in clouds of possibilities."
It seems to me that though both words can be synonymous, possibilities are surer than probabilities. If you do what is required of you, there is a strong possibility that you will achieve what you desire or aim at. The same may not apply to what is probable. There is a likelihood that it may be achieved; and it may not be achieved, too, even if you do the needful.
The ability to clearly differentiate both is the keen skill of accurate thinking. This is what Ray Dalio refers to as practical thinking that differentiates such thinkers from philosophers, whom he thinks lump everything together when it has to do with possibilities.
Words have meanings and only those who know the true meanings of given words in and out of their context of use, not those who are given to assumptions, can decode what words truly mean. These are those who possess the wisdom of right thinking.
During investigations, detectives depend on information to crack a difficult crime. They critically examine the nature and character of the crime from evidence gathered at the crime scene, and also through profiles of criminals and felons. They think with information available like past records and they attempt matching same against each criminal profile.
The results are often astounding. Every felon or criminal has a pattern and however careful they can be, they leave leads at the crime scene which investigators examine critically to come up with a perfect match. Criminals have patterns that leave trail.
Detectives have and use information, which are regarded as intelligence. They filter, think with and think through these. They use the same to enquire and find connections with crime styles and nature.
Because information is the most valuable commodity, those who have the right information are those with the right intelligence, speaking in terms of crime investigation and otherwise, too. These have key to breakthroughs in the fields concerned.
Asking the right questions in a given situation is a great way to help the mind respond rather than react. Good questions provoke good thinking and awake the sense of quality reasoning and awareness. Practical thinkers process questions with valid reasoning and information available.
Let's see a few questions that can demonstrate this:
"What three things are most important to your existence and what must you do to achieve them?"
"How can I make a positive impact in the present world?" Put another way, "How can I be a solution, and not a problem in the space?"
"What do I have and how can I use what I have to be what I need to be through service to others?
"How could we use mathematics to create a better world?"
"When is the 'correct' answer not the best solution?"
"Can science and spirituality ever become a single discipline, and if so, how?
The last three questions are credited to Wabisabi Learning. Questions like these can really get us to have something to think with and think about. They point us to specific places in search of solutions. They don't leave us in a void that lead nowhere and dump us in the midst of worrying.
Great thinkers question themselves during their private brainstorming sessions where they unravel deep treasures hidden beneath the surface. Through introspection, retrospection and meditation, they engage the memory and imagination and come up with solutions.
Imagine questions like:
"Why do I need to do what I intend doing?" "Of whose benefits would it be?" "Do I have the skills or competencies to do it?" "Who do I need to support me in this endeavour?" "What don't I need?"
Such questions, addressed to oneself, are essential in the delivery of value. They help one to identify value chain. They help one to separate from some things and align with some things. They give one a sense of purpose in every endeavour.
Where the right questions are evaded by the clever with half-hearted answers, the discerning mind use perspicacious insights to unravel the truth. They hear the unspoken from what is spoken. It's the power of discernment, which active listening permits. It's the strength and quality of intelligence.
To help increase curiosity and enquiry-based learning, we should ask info-eliciting questions like the above, not rhetorical questions. These questions help us to engage with ourselves and otherwise.
To think with pictures seems quite easy. Pictures are said to be worth a thousand words. It means that you can, through a picture, use the thinking tools of identification and interpretation. You can say specific things about a picture and another person can say something completely different from what you have said about the same picture. This takes us into the world of perceptions and spark great conversations.
Thinking with pictures is a great way to interpret and appreciate images. At such moments, those with more information are able to awake information from their subconscious minds. They find connections that they relate with and they are able to come up with more just by looking at an image.
There are thinking models or designs like the Six Critical Thinking Skills, the Six Hats Thinking, the Osborne Pans Reverse Brainstorming, the Outside the Box Thinking, Mind Mapping, and such like thinking models.
The Six Critical Thinking Skills is the ability to use interpretation, analysis, evaluation, inference, experiment and self-regulation. Using these as mould, we can pass our issues through each of them. Not in any particular order, though, we can evaluate, draw inferences, analyse, evaluate, interpret, self-regulate and experiment with the results we get from the process to test its validity as a solution.
The Six Hats Thinking is another thinking tool. It was originated by Edward de Bono. There are six hats of different colours: Red signifies feelings and intuitions, White signifies information and data, Green signifies creativity, Yellow signifies logical positive, Black signifies logical negative and Blue is the facilitator or manager of the entire team thinking process.
The group all wear the same hat at a time. This means looking at the problem at hand only from one perspective, indicated by the hat colour. Thus, the group think in a collective manner to avoid the distractions that often affect other forms of group thinking.
There are other models of design thinking as stated above, but we want to limit it to these. The idea is that we cannot be thinking in such ways by using specifically designed frameworks and overthink. It is impossible.
This is why I disagree with Clint Eastwood's thought, "The more time you have to think things through, the more you have to screw it up." Reason is simple: If you have a problem at hand or you have a process to think through, and you have an idea of what you want to achieve, you only need to pass it through an already structured model, and you would arrive at a specific destination.
This is what I think about thinking.
