Thinking

Man is an animal that can think. But often chooses not to. This is one of his crucial choices - when not to think, and when he makes this choice, why he makes it. A huge subject, that I can only touch on here.

I will not examine Greek and Roman thought on this, even though they had some important things to say about it. And skip forward to the Enlightenment, that also concentrated on thinking. And produced the reaction to it, called Romanticism.

And then skip forward some more to the Fifties, in America, in the last century - that I can remember well. What on earth happened then?

A lot happened, a whole lot - but whatever it was, Americans were determined to not notice it. And they are still determined to not notice it.

What was this? The fact that world was not noticing them, but something else. This something else was important, but not them. And they did not know who to cope with this amazing situation. So they ignored it - and ignored it completely.

I can state the problem this way, easily enough - and even go into the details of what this something else was. But that will make no difference - people are not thinking about this, and will continue to not think about it.

Even though their lives are so terrible, many of them will kill themselves. This makes them more determined than ever - to not notice, the most important fact of their lives.

Now that I have written this down, I feel better about it. If I can see it, perhaps others can see it also. Some of these others, should be in Software - someplace where people have been very successful. And where they should be extending their expertise to the larger world they are in.

But they are not. They are part of the tendency toward more and more specialization - and more and more disinterest in anything outside their specialty.

I am not saying anything new here - this has been said by nearly everyone. And nearly everyone has done nothing about it - because the situation seems impossible!

Let me give you an example. Yesterday, I received two notices, from Act Blue, that I had given money, for the third time, to two women, whose names I did not recognize. As a result, I cancelled my continuing contribution (once a month) to them.

They should have set up a newsletter, where they would have described that they were doing, and sent it to their supporters. And the money would have continued to come in.

Another example of not thinking.