Thinking

            Some years ago, when I was still working for a living, I happened to be gazing out the window one day when a friend came by and saw me through the open door of my office.  He was a sales manager based in Kansas City, so I didn't get to see him or him to see me very often.  He said in a loud voice, "Now I know what you do.  You think."  The comment was made half in jest, but I took it as a sincere compliment.  Because thinking is indeed what I did for a living.  It is what I've done all my life.  So this article is about thinking.

            What we do with our lives must be driven by thought, serious thought.  To drift aimlessly through life is pointless and likely unsatisfying.  So many young people push away from the shores of their formative years and embark on the vessel that will take them through adulthood without a destination in mind and, of course, no idea how to get there.  Without a thought to how they want to spend the rest of their lives, they are bound to drift aimlessly without the satisfaction of ever having accomplished anything of value.  Which brings me to education.
            The habit of serious thought begins in school, but more specifically in high school and even more so in college.  Education introduces students to the thoughts of others, be they related to science, history, the arts, religion, or philosophy.  It is by learning how others think that we learn how to think for ourselves.  Indeed, I've always maintained that the object of a school, in its purest Socratic meaning, is to teach students how to think.
            Once the habit of thinking has been formed, it must be pursued throughout life.  The writer Paul Theroux once said that when he is between books, he feels superfluous. Exactly right.  When one's mind is not engaged, it's as if one's life is suspended.  Now, you don't have to be an Aristotle or an Einstein to be a thinking person.  Technicians, craftsmen, builders, care givers, engineers, waiters,  clerks, homemakers, and even politicians think about the results they want to achieve and take pride in their accomplishments.  Thoughtful people can bring value to any walk of life, from the extraordinary to the mundane.
            I shake my head at the time wasted by today's kids who spend hours texting or playing video games, or staring vacuously at a big screen TV, when they could be reading  a good book or engaging their minds in so many other ways.  I look at these kids and ask myself: Whatever happened to intellectual curiosity?  But that's a topic for another day.