first, a caveat:
the principle thesis, as well as title, of the following essay are inspired by social critic curtis white in a book with the same title. dr. white deserves full credit for his brilliant, astute, poignant social commentary; and i am merely acting as a conduit for his message.
i believe in myself and the things i stand for. but there are times—perhaps at the filter of an L-paper, or after a sixth of vodka, or on a cold and sober sunday—that i fall into deep and heavy contemplation about my life and the choices i have made. i question everything. i wonder if my desire for deeper understanding is bona fide. i wonder if the path i've chosen is the right one. have i found the path, or has the path found me?
so many questions.
am i insane? precarious in thinking? confused by delusions of grandeur? have i led myself further away from the very things i seek? am i prancing in blissful ignorance towards an entirely imagined paradigm draped in flowery idealism? has my thirst for knowledge become rapacious? have i gone overboard? have i derailed? am i lost in search of a holographic truth? should i continue searching? is there anyone searching with me?
of course, such periods of chronic self-doubt and criticism, while dark and foreboding in their immediate manifestation, are integral to spiritual development. to date, to this very moment, i continue to oscillate between periods of crippling confusion and moments of sublime clarity. over time, my doubts have begun to subside, but they haven't fully dissipated. similarly, moments of clarity remain fleetingly transient, but they are stable reminders of the fact that whether i found the path or the path found me—i am, indeed, on the right one.
this periodic confirmation has been the lifejacket that has time and again saved me from drowning in the great ocean of events. it has also been the psychological tarmac from which some of my less tangible theories (including the thesis of this essay) have taken flight. and so, with (self-proclaimed) humility, i endeavor to explain how most of us have become mentally lethargic and socially indolent; barely and robotically thinking, spiritually suffocating—and not aware of any of it.
* * *
to borrow the idea from acclaimed social critic curtis white, we dwell in the province of the middle mind. the middle mind thrives in the common ground of unquestioned mediocrity. it does not latch to social agendas or associate with political movements. it is not a defined sect of society, but instead pervades it without discrimination.
perhaps from a slightly different perspective, the middle mind is society. it is the mode of thinking and pattern of behaviour rooted at the very core of our culture. the principle foundation upon which our social education is established is already a part of the middle mind. consequently, escape from middle-mind thinking becomes an independent, individual, and ultimately necessary endeavor. the problem is that the vast, overwhelming majority are oblivious to the machinations of the middle mind and so, don't see any need for immediate (or any) change.
to put it in yet another way, the balance and moderation we see so fit to cast over almost all areas of our experience—be it diet, exercise, entertainment, religion, work, or play—has in fact crept into the one place where it is most unwelcome: the domain of thinking. most of us have balanced out our thinking. we've streamlined it. flattened it. smoothed it around the edges. to the point where thoughts are no longer the fertile soil from which action springs, but desolate fields where passive, flaccid observance is the name of the game. to the point where we no longer use our thoughts as an arsenal for growth and change, but merely as a deadpan method of docile understanding.
and let me be abundantly clear. when i say 'we', i mean we. i mean you. and i mean me. i am not talking about some marginal, uneducated, philistine sector of society. i'm not talking about the homeless, the inbred, or the mentally challenged. i am talking about the people who constitute our communities. the elites, the politicians, and the bankers. the PhDs and CEOs. the business, middle, and working classes. the teachers. the students. the adolescents. these are the people who imperviously remain ignorant of their thoughtlessness – their middle-mindedness.
it is not a matter of intelligence or academic credentials. it doesn't matter how many scholarships you've received, or how many books you've published. everyone is susceptible to the syndrome. a syndrome that flies well below the radar of traditional detection. a syndrome that displaces the faculty of critical thinking from being a private enterprise to a public common denominator.
but don't get me wrong, it isn't always the same denominator, but a shared one nevertheless. essentially, people's knowledge is derived from one of these public paradigms. out of either fear or, more likely, lack of perspective, people continue to regurgitate and echo the same processed thoughts and patterns of thinking—factory manufactured thinking. and when pressed to express personal ideas out of this common thought(cess)pool, most of the results are draped in transparent robes of religion, politics, heritage, science, and morality.
the social discourse of our culture is polluted with mediocrity. unquestioned mediocrity. it isn't that we don't think, because we do, we think a great deal, but we don't do it for ourselves. we think that we do, and there in, as the bard would have it, lies the rub. there is the clandestine nature of the middle-mind; incessant and unscrupulous, always one step ahead. our ability to experience the true depth of thinking is thwarted by a self-imposed psychological harness that allows us to merely operate on mental-autopilot. and in a culture so saturated with seductive distractions and oppressive ideas, it is easy to understand why things have turned out this way.
however, it would be an exercise in futility to talk about the causes of the problem. we're all smart enough to know them, and it's a bit more complicated than just that. in fact, engaging in conversation about the causes is as middle-mind as it can possibly get. pretentious, intellectual pap about the deterioration of culture is just the sort of thing middle-mind loves to talk about. it thrives on it. it loves to be right. it loves to talk about peace. it loves to condemn war, hatred, and racism. the middle mind loves the environment, hates the big oil companies, and always attends a peaceful demonstration. it speaks out against the corruption of our politics and negative influence of media conglomerates. it cares, just like we care. we think, just like it thinks. middle-mind thinking: now available in stores across the planet.
* * *
actions speak louder than words. i don't agree with that. i think that actions speak for words. the thoughts that you have, the things that you say, will become the actions that you take. no thoughts = no action.
we do not think for ourselves, and our actions are the irrefutable evidence to prove it. we delude ourselves, through the faculty of middle-mind thinking, into believing that our thoughts are independent and autonomous—but nothing could be further from the truth. a momentary consideration of the way we live ought to confirm this last statement: our obsession with entertainment—with news, music, movies, sports, television, fashion—as though their absence would leave a hole in our hearts; our obsession with money; our trust in the medical and academic institutions; our hesitance to engage in civil disobedience; our submission to social codes; our fear of the law; our consumption; our laziness; our debt. we are perfect citizens. free to think and act as we wish, as long as it is within the bounds of our constrained ideologies.
a very sad state of affairs indeed.
i began this essay by talking about something that happens to me on a very regular basis. it is the process of self-questioning, analysis, and criticism. not only of the decisions that i have made, but of the thoughts that i have and continue to harbor. for me, this is the only refuge from middle-mind insanity. an in-depth look at the very fabric of thought. a scrutiny of ideals and closely held beliefs. but not one in-depth look, many looks. over and over. again and again. in the same way a computer requires routine virus scans, disk-cleanups, and software updates, thoughts require the same. they must be observed, their roots must be found, their reasons must be understood, and amendments must be made.
such is the process of critical thinking. it is inadvisable, and indeed inevitable, to not allow society to influence us. but what we make of that influence, and how we adopt it into our thinking, is a different story altogether. we cannot help but be impacted on. we cannot avoid being imprinted on. we read, we listen, we observe, and we gain. but it is the responsibility of everyone to practice prudence with their gains. it is their responsibility to lay their gains upon their mental mattress and choose, independently, what to make of what. what to discard, what to amend, what to keep, and what to question. it is within all our capacities to do this. but it takes time, practice, and patience. thinking of the real kind is not always as simple and easy as it's made out to be.
what's more, what's worse, is how many of us feel that we already practice what i have preached. we are so quick to blow our own trumpets, so quick to ante up our open-mindedness. we blindly, middle-mindedly dismiss the possibility that perhaps we aren't the self-appraising critical thinkers we imagine to be. that perhaps we have succumbed to the temptation of comfortable familiarity just a little bit. that perhaps we too, along with everyone we see so fit to denigrate, are part of the problem.
* * *
the scintilla of truth i have been privileged to absorb sanctions my confidence in engaging such weighty undertakings. my knowledge is founded on the principle that it is impossible to know. and so, if we can never know, all that is left to do is think.
the current state of our imagination, an imagination sick with abject poverty, is not doomed to be permanent. with careful, deliberate, and practiced effort, we can change. it is well within our means to raise our cultural consciousness and level of thinking to much higher planes. and it starts, as almost everything does, with you. with me. with the individual. we must work backwards, begin from the beginning, think from the ground up. by the grace of existence, we can all learn how to think. not be thought through, but think for ourselves.
see you tomorrow.