Thought Development−Exercise 1
Continuing from my observation that we are facing a crisis of thought erosion in this planet, it only behooves me to lay down some exercises in restraining this cultural drift from depleting our landscape off much needed sensibilities.
From many great options, I am outlining below an exercise I have learned from Nick Milo of the Linking Your Thinking (LYT) fame on Sense-Making.
Developing one's sense-making skills is crucial as a baby step in the right direction. There are a few questions that Nick encourages people to wrestle with in the constraints of time. First, think of a topic, say, Elon Musk. Then use the prompts below to warm up the sense-making muscle:
What does this remind me of?
What is this similar to and different from?
When have I experienced this in my life?
I recommend abstaining from any resources to obtain information. It is imperative that we learn to flex our thinking muscles by free writing on these prompts. If needed, the topic can be googled, but after an initial round of free writing, and then iterate. As mentioned earlier, constraints are good. So set an alarm for ten minutes. Below is an illustration of what this exercise looks like:
Elon Musk reminds me of Musk Melon. I guess his parents liked the fruit and decided to name him Elon instead of Melon. It also reminds me of the musk scented after-shave my dad used to apply. Thus, strangely, the name also reminds me of my dad.
Elon Musk is an entrepreneur who is similar to Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg. All of them are among the richest in the world and work with advanced technologies. They all single handedly built their empires. Elon is different from them in that he has very diverse business portfolios. He owns Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, etc. He is also known to be more experimental.
I have experienced Elon Musk through the innumerable Teslas I have seen in my neighbourhood in the US. I also witnessed, on the internet, the launch of the first private space mission through SpaceX.
The intention of engaging in such an exercise is to spark one's own thought process and to develop the confidence to lean on it. The lazy move to depend on google or any other search engine must be clipped. This exercise develops an individual to begin thinking more holistically from their own internal database.
Let me offer a few topics to spark this process. Try writing about
Air-conditioners
Sleep
Democracy in India
High-rise buildings
These are topics with a fair level of informational confidence most people have. Have a sense of playfulness as you engage these topics. The more you engage with this activity in a playful manner, the more you will be forced to not only engage your own internal databases, but you will have fun and will want to incorporate it as a lifestyle.
If you consistently do these on a daily basis, you will rewire your brain and your mind to restrain thought erosion. It will help you slowly regain confidence in your own ability to process data and birth your own opinions. Your thinking is to be treated as a muscle. When flexed often, and with added resistance, it will look good and perform well. If not, it will atrophy and lead to failure of the human body.
The one favour anyone can do for themselves is to develop their thought world. You need not be a statistic of this tragic cultural drift. In my next blog, I will offer some more exercises to strengthen the thought systems.