Skip to main content

A day for thinking

If I had the power to do so, I would a dedicate a day to logical thinking.  And make it mandatory for everyone to sit and think logically and coherently. Instructors will be provided for those who need. Simple steps of logical thinking like the Aristotelean syllogisms will be taught. People will be asked to do certain logical exercises. Their logical thinking skills be assessed and rewarded as they deserve.

If people begin to think logically, there will be no terrorists killing innocent people for nonexistent celestial creatures. The heroes of the world won't be the natural descendants of Gulliver's Yahoos whose greatest delight lay in amassing some stones which they absurdly believed to be very precious. Expediency will not take the place of morality. Godmen and other frauds will vanish without a trace. The world will be what Jesus wished it to be: the kingdom of heaven.

Rational thinking will teach people:
the real cause-effect relationships,
the difference between poetry and falsehood,
to interpret myths meaningfully,
to see heaven in a grain of sand,
to see god in the face of the starving child next door,
why cooperation is more desirable than competition,
why gods are created and why they don't belong to religions...

The world is a product of man's thinking. Change the thinking and the world changes.

Imagine a world that's governed by logical thinking.
Oh, poetry won't be banished. Imagination and fantasy can coexist with reason and creativity. But emotions will be reined by reason.

So, why not have a day for thinking?
Why not think everyday?

Why create hells when heavens are beckoning?

PS. Written for Indispire Edition 125.

Just dreaming 😁😂😇😅



Indian Bloggers

Comments

  1. Unfortunately, we have lost the power of thinking since we develop a trait of going with crowds

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thinking ...many would turn it into day of sleeping :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Alas my power of promoting a blog has been deprived but then I thought and thought until found out that it is not the almighty but some rules of a blogging platform which has barred me from promoting a desrving blog. So silly of me :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And a lot more things have nothing to do with god. Let people think and think! ☺

      Delete
  4. Well said Tomichan sir, todays society does lack the logical thinking & instead prefers do to what others also do.

    There's a poem of Pablo Neruda titled 'Keeping Quiet' which tells the world to stop for a moment & think whether their actions are worth doing or not; whether they benefit the world, or harm it?

    I suggest you read it if you have time. The PDF is on Google. The subject of the poem is closely related to this article.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've been teaching that poem for almost a decade ☺

      Yes, Neruda and so many others tried to get the world to do some introspection. But who cares? The world remains silly, fighting for its petty entertainments.

      Delete
  5. Logic cannot be the solution. Logic can be equally applied for the argument and against the argument. Also, it can only be spun on some axioms.

    The whole rational thinking of science is based on the axiom that the smallest unit of multidimensional universe is point, which is itself dimensionless.

    A point has no length, no breadth, and no height but a series of points is called length, and series of lines is called plane, and so on. I don't find it logical at all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Also, you can establish a cause-effect relationship with logic, but you have no means to test whether the established cause-effect relationship is real or not.

      Delete
    2. That's why I mentioned poetry and imagination. Science accepts both. They are part of the universe which in the words of Einstein "is expanding into nothing that's something." The mathematical concepts of point, zero, infinity and so on require imagination as much as logic to comprehend. Only those who are willing to raise their thinking to that level will understand the absurdity as well as mysterious beauty of the cosmos and the rules that govern it.

      Delete
    3. sorry to intrude, but if you hit a person with a bullet right on the head, he will die. if you feed a person with lies right from his childhood, he will become a believer of those lies. I can see cause and effect everywhere.

      Delete
    4. You're welcome to intrude, Pranju.

      There is casuse-effect relationship everywhere including the notion of karma. But misperceptions are highly possible. As Shelley said, life is a many-colored dome that "stains the white radiance of eternity." Life's distortions often become religion's truths.

      Delete
  6. Sir, people are very clever than we thought of, even uneducated.But they want their own interests,that's the real problem.See everywhere,the less they educated,the more they amassed wealth.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's why I spoke about cooperation over competition. Logically, competition leads to survival of the winner which is what's happening. The winner may be the crook, the terrorist, or whoever. The fact remains that they are incapable of thinking beyond elementary levels.

      Delete
    2. Murthy sir, I added the smileys at the end with the mention of dream because I know mine is a sheer dream.

      Delete
  7. What about a day of unthinking? Ha ha ha.....

    ReplyDelete
  8. There are some MNCs which have dedicated a day of the week as 'Think friday' just to encourage new thinking and initiatives by their employees.So this does sound like something which can be given serious thought.

    ReplyDelete
  9. What harm has ever come by thinking?

    Thoughtful post Tomichan.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Anupam. Creative thinking contributes to civilisation. But we are inundated with destructive thoughts. Alas!

      Delete
  10. heard mentality and not giving time to reading have stopped our thinking capabilities

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Reading, serious reading, has gone out of fashion. Now it's fb and whatsapp!

      Herd mentality is coeval with the species, I think. Most people like to follow and not lead or choose their own paths. It's safe to be a follower.

      Delete
  11. That's interesting....I like that you have laid emphasis on poetry too....The conversations with Ravish and Pranju are interesting too....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ancient philosophy spoke about the "music of the spheres." 'Pythagoras proposed that the Sun, Moon and planets all emit their own unique hum (orbital resonance) based on their orbital revolution, and that the quality of life on Earth reflects the tenor of celestial sounds which are physically imperceptible to the human ear. Subsequently, Plato described astronomy and music as "twinned" studies of sensual recognition: astronomy for the eyes, music for the ears, and both requiring knowledge of numerical proportions.' [Wikipedia]

      There are many mathematical and scientific concepts that are quite poetical, I think. In the sense that they transcend pure logic and enter the realms of vision.

      Delete
  12. I think I really need more than just a day to sit back and introspect...beautifully written post:-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Amit.

      The DAY is a gesture only. Just to remind ourselves of our duty to THINK.

      Delete
  13. Now that everything is available at the press of a button people have forgotten the exercise of thinking. Maybe someday a fad from the west will reintroduce it and people will start joining some center offering mental exercises and techniques to improve thinking and channelizing positive thoughts!!! We fear imagination and art and bookish knowledge is interpreted as thoughts; once we let ourselves free thoughts will find their vent.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Florentino’s Many Loves

Florentino Ariza has had 622 serious relationships (combo pack with sex) apart from numerous fleeting liaisons before he is able to embrace the only woman whom he loved with all his heart and soul. And that embrace happens “after a long and troubled love affair” that lasted 51 years, 9 months, and 4 days. Florentino is in his late 70s when he is able to behold, and hold as well, the very body of his beloved Fermina, who is just a few years younger than him. She now stands before him with her wrinkled shoulders, sagged breasts, and flabby skin that is as pale and cold as a frog’s. It is the culmination of a long, very long, wait as far as Florentino is concerned, the end of his passionate quest for his holy grail. “I’ve remained a virgin for you,” he says. All those 622 and more women whose details filled the 25 diaries that he kept writing with meticulous devotion have now vanished into thin air. They mean nothing now that he has reached where he longed to reach all his life. The

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Unromantic Men

Romance is a tenderness of the heart. That is disappearing even from the movies. Tenderness of heart is not a virtue anymore; it is a weakness. Who is an ideal man in today’s world? Shakespeare’s Romeo and Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s Devdas would be considered as fools in today’s world in which the wealthiest individuals appear on elite lists, ‘strong’ leaders are hailed as nationalist heroes, and success is equated with anything other than traditional virtues. The protagonist of Colleen McCullough’s 1977 novel, The Thorn Birds [which sold more than 33 million copies], is torn between his idealism and his natural weaknesses as a human being. Ralph de Bricassart is a young Catholic priest who is sent on a kind of punishment-appointment to a remote rural area of Australia where the Cleary family arrives from New Zealand in 1921 to take care of the enormous estate of Mary Carson who is Paddy Cleary’s own sister. Meggy Cleary is the only daughter of Paddy and Fiona who have eight so

Octlantis

I was reading an essay on octopuses when friend John walked in. When he is bored of his usual activities – babysitting and gardening – he would come over. Politics was the favourite concern of our conversations. We discussed politics so earnestly that any observer might think that we were running the world through the politicians quite like the gods running it through their devotees. “Octopuses are quite queer creatures,” I said. The essay I was reading had got all my attention. Moreover, I was getting bored of politics which is irredeemable anyway. “They have too many brains and a lot of hearts.” “That’s queer indeed,” John agreed. “Each arm has a mind of its own. Two-thirds of an octopus’s neurons are found in their arms. The arms can taste, touch, feel and act on their own without any input from the brain.” “They are quite like our politicians,” John observed. Everything is linked to politics in John’s mind. I was impressed with his analogy, however. “Perhaps, you’re r

Country without a national language

India has no national language because the country has too many languages. Apart from the officially recognised 22 languages are the hundreds of regional languages and dialects. It would be preposterous to imagine one particular language as the national language in such a situation. That is why the visionary leaders of Independent India decided upon a three-language policy for most purposes: Hindi, English, and the local language. The other day two pranksters from the Hindi belt landed in Bengaluru airport wearing T-shirts declaring Hindi as the national language. They posted a picture on X and it evoked angry responses from a lot of Indians who don’t speak Hindi.  The worthiness of Hindi to be India’s national language was debated umpteen times and there is nothing new to add to all that verbiage. Yet it seems a reminder is in good place now for the likes of the above puerile young men. Language is a power-tool . One of the first things done by colonisers and conquerors is to