Are we thinking?

Are we thinking?

Really? Who doesn’t think? Well we do think about mundane issues and we do think about love. However do we think about issues that may not concern us directly but can affect society as a whole or can shape the attitude of a whole generation? 

My mother gave me a book called Panchtantra when I was young. There is a background to the book. In ancient India there was a king who built a large empire and ruled it well. He had four sons who were least interested in studying or learning anything about life skills. He was worried about his sons and so employed a renowned scholar called Vishnu Sharma to teach them. Vishnu Sharma realized that traditional method will not work with them so he told them stories which carried a message. Just like Aesop’s fables, these stories presented a problem and at the end there was a lesson to be learnt. But with every story, he asked them the solution before he concluded. All four princes enjoyed the stories and the result was they became quite wise.

Why am I telling you all this? What Vishnu Sharma did was to encourage the princes to think. To navigate life by anticipating, facing and finding an answer.

Encouraging thinking in children is very important because it shapes their personality. It forces them to face challenges head on and become successful. This is about mundane but once our thinking is active we think about things that are beyond physical. Scientists, explorers, discoverers thought why things were as they were. That is why newton could discover the law of gravity, Sushruta could perform plastic surgery more than two thousand years ago. That is why we have the locomotives, trains, planes, rocket and all the advance technology because someone thought. New continents were discovered, ancient civilizations and their language was deciphered, philosophical theories were propounded because someone thought. 

I find thinking abstract helps me in my creativity, gives me new ideas and keeps my brain active.  Reading also helps a lot.

What is your source of thinking? 

Do share it. 

So be it !!!