The Right Side of Thought - More To That

Reflecting on the nature of thought may not come naturally, but it can be trained with consistent practice. In the same way our muscles don’t bulk up without physical exercise, our minds won’t sharpen up without adequate mental training. Contemplative practices like meditation and prayer contribute to this type of project, but much of it starts by ... See more

I call this the Thought See-Saw, and while it features two prominent sides, the truth is that we are rarely sitting at the endpoints of it. Although I’d like to think that sustained thought is a reliable pathway to profound insight, I can easily find myself on a train of thought that is taking me to a pit of anxiety and fear. In fact, I find myself... See more

To properly navigate these waves, we require reflection, or what I like to refer to as being on the right side of thought.

Well, if you take those same thousand people making the smartphone above and direct their attention to building a nuclear weapon instead, the story shifts quite dramatically.

So if thought is the great thing responsible for the evolutionary backbone of our species, why has its reputation been so shitty this whole time?

If there’s ever a universal lesson about thought, it’s that it can help us immensely, but can just as easily destroy us. Toxic ideologies such as racism, sexism, and classism are all the byproduct of misdirected thought. Things that human beings have grown to cherish – like art, philosophy, and science – can become sources of absolute hell and mise... See more

Some argue that these intangible systems create the material world, while others like to believe it’s the other way around. Whichever way you view it, it’s undeniable that thought is the irreplaceable fuel of our existence, powering every gear and component necessary for humanity to survive.

When you notice the unique texture of each thought, it becomes easier to identify it when it arises, and to view it objectively, without reacting to it. The thought is exactly where it needs to be, and there’s no need to interpret it in any way. It’s kind of like the difference between seeing a bug in your home vs. seeing a bug in nature. In the fo... See more

Ideas are the software that run on the hardware of our minds, and reflection is the only tool we have to reliably maintain and update it.

Reflection can mean many things, but at its core, I think it comes down to our ability to strip these emotional charges from our thoughts. Instead of allowing each thought’s emotional baggage to dictate our every action, what if we can strip away that energy and observe the thought itself, without any judgment?