THINK

There have many people who have asked me how I manage to come up with a variety of new and apt acronyms week after week. The answer is simple; you just need to THINK and that means one has to Try Hard to Invite New Knowledge. Last weeks post also had a small exercise as part of the Action Points, where again you had to think a bit and then get the answers. If you haven’t got all the answers make one more attempt before you check the answers at the end of today’s post. What is important is that one makes a good attempt at exercising ones grey cells before one calls it quits. Even more important is that we leverage our ability to think logically, creatively, rationally and philosophically to solve our personal problems; be it one of relationships, personal growth or the challenges posed by daily life.

Logical thinking is what we are most familiar with since most of our lives we spend in logical thinking. We have rules for grammar, mathematics, science and we have similar rules of discipline, decorum and decency, almost all of it following a logical order. Our day to day life is overwhelming influenced and controlled by logical thinking. Most of the problems we are confronted with are first sought to be over come by logical analysis and correspondent logical answers. The problem with logical thinking is that it confines our thoughts to set patterns and it does not have a provision for emotion and feelings to be juxtaposed in the process. Our creative thinking is sparked through the softer side of formal learning like arts, craft, debates, essay writing etc. We nurture our creative thinking by honing the skills by being inventive in playing pranks, finding excuses to escape punishment, by being curious and making new discoveries which open our eyes to new possibilities and by pushing the boundaries of our established thinking into the realms of imagination, fantasies and wishful thinking. E.g. When one blows into a balloon we can inflate it. Someone wondered what would happen if we fill helium gas which is lighter than air into the balloon and suddenly you had balloons that could float in air. Someone decided to see if the balloon was made gigantic in size and filled with hot air if it could take a joy ride using the original principle of the helium gas and soon we had hot air balloons being used to soar up.

Rational thinking mirrors logical thinking but it is generously sprinkled with abundant doses of feelings, sensations, humanness and if required laced with a generous helping of creative inputs. E.g. An eye for an eye logically sounds like a the most appropriate system to ensure fairness to a victim but to the rational mind sounds very barbaric. With a healthy dose of creativity we have established the judiciary system to ensure that the guilty are made accountable and the victims given fair justice. Philosophical thinking focuses on marrying the various types of thinking into a process of self fulfillment. Philosophers study, analyze, explore, and propound the ideal thought process that attempts to capture their understanding of harmonious day to day living. Human nature seeks answers to complex questions like the origin of life, the existence of God, afterlife etc. and philosophical thinking attempts to fulfill that quest.

At various times each of us indulge in these varied styles of thinking. When we desperately seek answers we alternate between these styles rapidly and pick up the answer that suits us. Many a time the answers thrown up by each style contradict each other and confuse us. We are then forced to THINK and Try Hard to Invite New Knowledge that will offer us a clearer path forward.

Action Points:

1. Assume you are in a museum that has some of the finest paintings by the world masters including paintings by Van Gogh, Picasso and Rembrandt. Suddenly you become aware of a fire raging. You can save only one of those priceless works of art. Which one of those priceless treasures would you save? (This was a question posed by a leading newspaper and the best answer they awarded the prize to will feature in the next blog post. Meanwhile you can send in your answers as a comment to this post.)
2. Here are 4 words in English which do not contain a vowel. Can you fill in the blanks and identify the words? The number of alphabets that make up the word are given in brackets.

• H _ _ n   (4)
• G_ p _ y (5)
• M _ t _   (4)
• R_y_h_   (5)

The answers to the questions of the previous blog post dated 26th July 2010 are as under:

2E and 1N on a F = 2 ears and 1 nose on a face
S is B (Hint it is a well known phrase) = Small is Beautiful
5 T on a F = 5 toes on a foot
3 W on a T = 3 wheels on a tricycle
B B B S & T T L S = Ba ba black sheep & Twinkle twinkle little star

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