A Call to Arms

Wow, this is powerful. We have all been tough to be good sheep over the years do not question what we are told and do not think about things to much. But in order to have a life of meaning we must think, we must examine ourselves and the ideas of others and not be afraid to voice our opinion and be able to defend them with logic and reason when we are called to.

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Every one preach that rational thinking is best for modern dealing.Can we take every decision by rational thinking. We are born with our emotion,without emotion we could not survive in childhood.Rational thinking came in our life late, when we are mature and learn the thinking process than we rationally think.When we take any decision rationally some part of emotion is there.
We want to survive on this earth in any condition, Our survival instinct is mostly irrational,For survive we take any step and there are mostly irrational.Irrationality also part when we take rational decision. So we must not came to conclusion that rational thinking is solve our all problems.

Ramesh, I agree that emotions are important and I find people need to be taught how their emotions relate to decision making but I DO think rational thinking is under-rated because people have become lazy, and our education system doesn’t teach it.

I’ve started studying critical thinking skills because I recognise the need for it in my life and the detrimental results from not having it. So I support the need for rational thinking.

I’d be interested to know what Avi means by living ‘correctly’.

If she is talking about ethics and ways to relate to one another then one thing that hasn’t changed is human nature. For example, the Bible cover thousands of years of learning about people and by the end of the New Testament it teaches us everything we need to know about what people are like, and how to relate to them! We don’t necessarily new need ethics for the modern age in most cases – love thy neighbour as thyself works throughout the world!

Why do we so often assume that new principles is better?

But perhaps I am way off the mark here so Avi, would you like to clarify what you mean by ‘living correctly’?

Rational thinking is left-brained thinking and is boxed and linear and structured. It has it’s place obviously and we have all been conditioned to use this part of our brain. However, right brain thinking is VITALLY important too. Without it, there would be no music, no art, no literature – can anyone imagine a planet without these things? What a sterile place it would be. I live in a very busy city, and I see people in grey clothes all the time, all being rational. So rational that they are squashed and need to go out and get very very drunk on a Friday night to loosen themselves up. Rational thinking IS important but there must, as with all things, be balance. I personally love my right-side thinking – it gives me tingles, it makes me feel alive, without I’d feel soul-dead.

I really enjoyed this article. Because of the limitations of formal schooling, I chose to home school my daughter for a while. I concentrated on teaching her HOW to think rather than teaching her WHAT to think. It would be nice if critical thinking skills were taught in U.S. schools but there has actually been much fight to NOT include this in the curriculum. The results would scare me, but I’m content with the fact that opportunities to learn the art of thinking will surface for anyone willing to open their mind and let it in.

Yes Nea, you are spot on. Here’s a quote that speaks BUNDLES. “I don’t want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers.” John D. Rockefellar, Founder of the National Education Association. Makes one think, doesn’t it? I think, as do a lot of others, that school is lot more about fostering conformity than thinking.

“I don’t want a nation of thinkers, I want a nation of workers.”

–John D. Rockefellar, Founder of the National Education Association

Hey Avi,

I agree with what you are saying for the most part and think that its awesome that you have the courage to speak your mind and think for your self and to question. I am not sure about what you are saying about “rational” thinking or if that is relevant, but we definitely all need to have the courage to speak out, explore, and question. We are not taught to do this in most “civilized” school systems. For the most part what is emphasized is competition and being the best and smartest, etc, whatever any of that really contributes to society or a happy, healthy individual. I agree with what people above said above about how rationality is important, but it depends on what you mean by rational. I think I agree with what you are saying but don’t really like the word rational because it does not seem to take into consideration that the world is much more complex and we all have different ways of rationalizing and there are many factors when thinking such as our emotions, etc.

This is fundamentally inaccurate, and it’s unfortunately an all too common misconception. Rational thinking is not just left-brained thinking. I’m a paid actor. I write and direct animated films (completely fiction). I’ve played piano for 13 years. I sing, compose, and write songs. I think I don’t need to make it any more clear that I’m obviously not saying everyone should go be computer programmers. Rational thinking is the process of actually considering what you’re receiving. It doesn’t define how you process that, but merely the fact that you do. I process primarily in auditory forms (words and music). Many people I know think in pictures or movements. I’m not telling you how to think. The point is that in whatever way you do think that you do it. I’ve met geniuses in every thinking style. I’ve met people who think in pictures, numbers, and movements who are equally fascinated by quantum physics and modern advancement simply in different ways. I personally am no good at math and could never do any of the equations, but if someone explains the theories to me in words then I quite enjoy them. I’m most certainly not trying to box you in. The thing I’m trying to do most is to kick people out of their boxes. Be self-observant. Be aware of your environment. Listen to what’s around you, and give it some thought before you respond to it. It’s something that’s required of any good artist as much (sometimes moreso) as anyone else. Above all, and any artist learns this lesson fast, don’t do something just because someone else tells you to do it. Formulate your own structure and foundation of what a good idea is no matter how that structure may exist. That’s what this post about, and that’s what my book The Common Thread is about. I’m not interested in turning everyone into the same kind of people. I’m interested in pushing everyone as far forward as they can go in exactly who they are. Concepts adopted without thinking are just limiting people. As the dictionary defines it rational is having or exercising reason, sound judgment, or good sense. I assume you have opinions on the arts you prize. Do you not apply reason, judgment, and sense to formulate these opinions? Do you think about or talk about a piece of art? If someone took their pants off, took a photo of themselves, and posted them on telephone poles everywhere, would you stand and admire it like you would The Mona Lisa? There’s rationality in art as much as everywhere else. All artists have their own rational process. Rationality is about encouraging thought in its own way amongst everyone.

> what living “correctly” means in today’s modern world.
What have you found living “correctly” to be?

I’ve found an effective pattern to be:
- following your purpose / unique contribution
- living your values
- playing to your strengths
- continuous improvement across mind, body, emotions, career, financial, relationships, and fun

At the end of the day, you’re always you’re most important meaning maker.

As far as thinking skills, I’m a fan of de Bono’s work as well as argumentation (claims, evidence, inferrences, warrants … etc.) for inpsecting your own thinking or others, as well as PQ/PA.

Thank you for responding to my comment Avi. I think we are in agreement then that both rational and non-rational thought are important. I think art affects me on an emotional, spiritual level rather than a rational one. I either just like something or I don’t. Something either resonates with me or it doesn’t. I have never liked the Mona Lisa at all. I accept that other people rate it highly but as I like to make up my own mind, I don’t like it. I think the colours are drab and she looks drab. So if someone posted a picture of themselves minus pants, I’d probably appreciate it and it would make me smile. In the UK, we have a mysterious graffiti artist called Banksy and I think his work is great. But even if I don’t agree with you, I am actually agreeing with you – because I am exercising my right to think independently and not conforming to everything you say in your article, which I think, was the point you were trying to make.

“It’s imperative to develop a rational foundation on which to build all other ideas. If you don’t have this foundation, then how could your opinion be worth anything? Would you trust a doctor who simply decided to walk into the hospital without any kind of medical training? We do that all the time in day to day life with our most valuable opinions on living itself. We adopt anything that anyone tells us in sources ranging from a self-help book to a guy on the street without any consideration for whether what they’re saying has any real merit. Someone’s opinion is taken into account without any consideration for whether anything stands behind it. A foundation of rational thinking and understanding is not developed to compare all other statements against.”

I agree with what you are saying here. We need to have minds of our own- to think for ourselves and to learn from our own experiences, but this is where I may disagree with you when it comes to the fact that not everything CAN be “rationalized.” Someone’s opinion may in fact be very valid without it needing to be rationalized, or make sense to someone else, and that doesn’t make it any less valid. We all have our own truths, so really, to thine own self be true. But let’s take for example most of what you hear in the mainstream news. It is for the most part invalid. If we think for ourselves and learn from our own experiences and research we know it is misinformation. So it that respect you are right, but I think that in most of my everyday life my decisions and beliefs can not be rationalized. It is INTUITION, EMOTION, SPIRIT, and other factors that guide my life rather than rationalizing. But you are right in a sense, because to me it is all rational and I personally thought a lot about my life. But for example dad and I were talking the other day about Astrology. To me it is rational and truthful and to him it is not (his opinion for the moment anyway). But my beliefs about Astrology come to me through intuition and innate knowledge. Someday I hope to be able to explain it rationally to people who think in that way, but I know there is much more to life than being able to rationalize. Trusting from within is more important. What do you make of these distinctions I am making?

2 SIMPLE RULES I LIVE BY:

1. The realization that I am not the center of the universe, control very little if anything, and an am merely a guest here on Earth.

2. That my place in the world is to help other people and leave the world a better place than I found it.

Jake

Ah but I haven’t told you to rationalize everything. I’ve only said to think rationally. The conclusion that everything could not be rationalized could in some cases be a rational one depending on the thought process behind it. To thine own self be true is very much what The Common Thread is about, but since someone else asked what I concluded in that I’m going to cover more of it there. The mainstream news is an excellent example of an opportunity to think for yourself. Intuition, emotion, and spirit are complicated subjects. It’s also important to note in cases like that that you may simply be using a different name for something that someone else also sees as rational but in a different way. That again is a case of self-analyzation and understanding for you to be able to ascertain that for you, and of course you obviously do think quite a bit about your life or you wouldn’t be able to discuss this so readily in respect to yourself. Now if we’re going to talk about astrology, I personally can’t buy into it. I’ve read far too many things pertaining to the history of various religious concepts that seem to indicate where things like that come from. Too much of modern science indicates otherwise, and there’s too much in the realm of self-fulfilling prophecy as opposed to the actual reading of what’s going on. However I will acknowledge that there are many things in the world I don’t understand, and there is the chance that that is one of them. I just don’t find it likely. Also there is of course much more to life than being able to rationalize. Rationality is a system of processing life which would require you to be living before you could even begin to apply it. There are people who have very very strong intuitions. I’ve had many moments of my own intuition being very strong in ways that I can’t rationally pass off as coincidence (the odds are astronomical). It’s something I acknowledge in The Common Thread and the reality is I don’t know what it is. I posit a couple of one sentence theories for it, and then say it’s something you really have to draw your own conclusion for. It’s not something, however, that I will ever knock down and say it doesn’t exist. Just because science hasn’t explained something doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, but you can still rationally determine if that something actually is likely to exist. For instance science still can’t fully explain the black hole, but they’re quite sure that it’s there. However science does not see evidence that tribal dances actually bring rain. This is simply the process of looking at something and thinking about whether it exists the way people think it does or if it’s more likely to exist in some other way that hasn’t been explained yet. It’s also the piece of looking at where something is being made up that isn’t there at all. There’s a lot of debatable issues, but I’ve never met someone who has developed a rational framework who I couldn’t have a rational debate with even if our opinions disagree. The fact of the matter is that in being rational there’s no need for blind belief. You have a system of understanding that you can convey to other people. The system of understanding may not be exactly the same as someone else’s, but if it is rational then it will not completely break down as soon as someone makes an argument. Additionally many people feel threatened if their beliefs are questioned. That’s a very strong indication that there’s no rational system behind them. A rational system would not feel threatened by questioning.

Hi Jake,

I agree with you in some respects and disagree in others. I don’t think there’s really anyone who thinks they’re the center of the universe though I know there are some who push the boundaries of their own materialistic neediness a bit. However it’s important to recognize that this doesn’t mean selfishness is a bad thing. The word selfish is a strange one. It has a very negative connotation yet it only indicates that you are doing something for yourself. You should do things for yourself. You do make a lot of impact in what you do. I disagree with your statement that we control very little because in reality we control a lot. It’s not butterfly effect so much as just realizing how much things are interconnected. If you randomly scream at someone on the street, a chain of events that goes very far away from you is likely to happen as a result of that. The things you do definitely matter, and you’re not a guest on Earth. You’re a part of the Earth and the universe. A guest is someone who gets invited over for a nice meal and then they leave later. The host deals with the house, cleans up after them, and everything else. You are apart of this whole thing we call a universe. Everything you do makes an impact, and no one can simply clean up your plate and wash your napkin for you. You are much more than a guest. Now leaving the world a better place than when you became apart of it is certainly a noble cause, but the best way you can do that is to simply be yourself. By all means go out of your way in your own life to make others lives easier. If you see someone struggling to carry something then help them out. Don’t make your life about helping everyone else though. Unless that’s the only thing that truly makes you happy it can really be harmful to you and others. You won’t feel like you’re accomplishing things that you want to accomplish, and you might even take that out on the people you’re helping or the other people in your life. You should never feel like you’re really just serving someone else. You’re serving yourself and you may be helping someone or many people in the process, but if everyone simply made sure they were happy and satisfied in their lives (in rational ways) the world would be a much better place. A country goes to hell because it has greedy irrational politicians. The politician who truly serves his/her own best interests realizes that it’s in their best interests to make the country the best place they possibly can for everyone to live. That’s what’s going to give them the best life that they can live personally. There’s nothing rational about finding ways to horde money and resources for yourself. That sort of selfishness is an irrational decision. However if you rationally serve yourself then you will in the process make the world a better place to everyone. You don’t gain anything from being a jerk to a store clerk, closing a door someone needed to get into, hording material items, or anything else you might be able to think of. Those decisions are both irrational and are not actually serving yourself. Serving yourself in rational ways is healthy all around.

Hi J.D.,

You are right in the same vein I am. What I’ve found to be living “correctly” is very much what you’ve found. The Common Thread is really about doing what’s important to you and how you can do that in today’s world. It provides explanations for what’s really going on in certain systems of yourself such as a little bit on the nature of the survival need and the way our minds tend to see things. It talks about the nature of doing things that are important to you and having that sort of perspective on the world, and it also talks about the direct ways to apply doing what’s important to you in all sorts of situations. There are so many options moving so fast today that a lot of things are hard to think about or understand. The Common Thread is at its simplest a guide to doing what’s important to you and living the life you want to have. I don’t know what life you want to have, and I surely wouldn’t presume to tell you what kind of life to have. My goal is to provide you with a series of personal tools you can think about to get yourself wherever you want to be. I don’t like funky meditations, eccentric terms that don’t mean anything, or strange affirmation rituals. I don’t like anything where I’m telling you that you must do this this way to make your life better. I simply don’t think that’s true. I’m providing people with a guide and an easily conceivable structure on exactly what doing what’s important to you really means. As I’ve said elsewhere it’s all about seizing the day and being true to yourself. The reason I wrote it is because those terms are so rarely defined in a way that’s actually understandable and applicable to people’s every day lives. I wanted to write something that was more than just vague statements about being positive and seeing opportunities. I wanted to write something that people could sit down, read, and then immediately be able to see exactly how it would work and how they could apply it starting at that exact moment with no schedules or requirements included. If The Common Thread were to end up in a self-help section in a bookstore my goal is that once you’ve read it you never feel the need to go back to the self-help section again. It’s intended to be that kind of complete philosophy (noting that I’m obviously not aiming to cure mental illnesses or solve problems that require prescription medication and serious neurological help).

Avi – Great post – very well written with great ideas! I agree that much of our rational thinking has gone out with wanting to conform to other people’s beliefs…. reminds me of the Wendy’s commercial where a large group of people are running toward a gaping hole to their demise just because everyone else is.

People are tired and lazy and disillusioned. I actually understand completely and I almost want to join them.

The part of me that doesn’t want to jump in the hole is actually my gut more than my rational mind. I rely on it like my most respected and wisest teacher. It tells me things I don’t necessarily want to hear, but when I listen and act on these messages things always seem to turn out for the best – I sleep better and feel good… until the next dilemma.

But, yes, my rational mind does come in handy too. I buy book, software through recommendations, I try to not eat too much sugar and I exercise regularly (plus some other ‘normal’ stuff).

I balance my decisions based upon gut and rationale, and if there is a tie, my gut usually wins. But that’s just me. I will definitely check out your book – sounds very interesting. I just recently read a book called ‘Wake Up, Your Life is Calling’ by Andy Feld.

I recommend this particular book for those idealists that need to be grounded from time to time (like me). It still inspires one to reach for the stars while understanding that we still have to live here on the physical plane (darn it!).

Thanks for listening,
Kim

Thanks for the great posting – and happy new year to you all

Hey Kim,

Thanks for your comments! I’ve been in the wanting to join them stage which is a big part of the reason why I wrote the book. It’s to show what’s available outside of the box. I know what you’re saying about your gut. I get the gut instincts too (or intuition as some like to call it) which as I was saying in another comment is something that can’t be discarded but can’t be defined either. You just have to try and observe it as realistically and rationally as possible. I think you hit the nail on the head with the idea of having the stalemate between the rational mind and the gut instinct. In those cases I go with my gut too unless there seems to be any real danger involved just to have a new experience I can evaluate on. Sometimes the rational mind wins and sometimes the gut wins. It depends on which one seems most likely to be “right.” I’ve found I can learn a lot from analyzing where my gut is coming from too. A lot of times it’s a completely rational perspective that I’ve thought about before but am completely discarding at the moment. In that way I refer to it as subconscious. It can be a lot of things to a lot of different people, and it’s probably in reality the combination of a lot of things that neuroscience hasn’t really delved into yet. In the book I outline the amount of information we process and how we focus and make decisions. Recognizing this makes certain gut instincts quite conceivable as another part of the brain working from a piece of information we already know but aren’t currently thinking about Sometimes we just seem to “sense” something there’s no way we could’ve known which for all we know is an undiscovered facet of quantum physics. There’s always a lot we don’t know yet, but the rational perspective and the guide I outline in The Common Thread I feel are the best handles to use with all of it. I’m definitely going to check out Andy’s book as I’m a large idealist myself. Also I browsed over to Avenstar.net, and I’m going to check out a few of your other websites as well. They look very interesting. Feel free to let me know if you have further questions or comments as well as comments on the book are always appreciated.

All my best,
Avi

great blog, happy new year wishes!

Thank you Avi, and Kim for showing me this site. So many individuals have become Zombies, incapable of new thought. Their minds are clogged up by TV, newspapers, radio, computer, friends and never ending pity parties to a point where individual free thought is no longer possible for many. Without the ability to think freely we do not have the ability to create and manifest our life and desires. This is what I see as our biggest societal challenge today, to regain our minds and divine given power of free will and free thought.It requires effort and self responsibility most likely begining with some form of daily meditation or contemplation.
If we wish to change our lives and society we must begin by changing our thoughts, emotions, and words. Thanks to all. Andy

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Douglas,I Fully Agree with you that critical thinking is highest thinking.But we always not thinking critically it is not possible.We Are living life with emotion, keep balance between emotional and rational instinct and it is very difficult to keep balance.Our survival instinct is main hindrance for critical thinking.

Yes, we have only one brain but it can be taught to be much more effective in so many ways. New research has shown that it actually responds to exercise. Yes, exercise. I’m writing a book for MS patients and recently saw this research which is unbelievable.

If you figure out the correct way to live then I guess you also answered the question, ” What is the meaning of life?”

So I dont think there is a correct way to life just as the meaning of life has no answer.

-andy

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