Random thoughts on thinking
I've been reading a lot of random stuff lately and one thing I've noticed is that the human mind can be a lot like a sponge. I can read and read but at a certain point, my mind has absorbed too much information and I need to process it before acquiring more. There are people who read and read, and keep reading, book after book, and I don't know how they do it, because usually I read a few pages and need to stop and process what I've read because sometimes there is so much information and related thoughts that if I just ignore them and keep reading I don't think I'm going to be truly understanding what's written. I need to actively engage with what I'm reading, stop for a moment to think, and it's even very good sometimes to talk about it or write it down in order to sort out the mind. Otherwise I feel like I'm not getting the most out of the reading.
I need to digest what I'm reading, assimilate it, and go beyond passive consumerism of content. And not only with books, but with videos, movies, documentaries, conversations, experiences that generate emotions and thoughts in me, etc. It's not just about quantity, it's not about reading thousands of books, watching thousands of documentaries, or whatever, it's about quality, about how you do it to improve and get more out of what you're doing. I mean, you cannot read a book and extract from it exactly the same ideas as everyone else, because then, there is no personal interpretation, there is no connection between the knowledge I have previously acquired, my personal perception, subjectivity, etc., with what I am reading. It takes active reflection, asking questions, searching for answers, in order to truly understand and learn something.
It is not simply a matter of idly accumulating knowledge, but also of finding a way to make that knowledge the answer to something. A lot of knowledge without thought is no good. And intelligence has nothing to do with how much information someone has, but how they think. We must stop associating intelligence or wisdom, which are two different things, with the simple acquisition of knowledge, because being knowledgeable, although it may be good, is not synonymous with either of these two things. Reading, audiovisual material, and all these similar things, are tools, they are good, they are useful, but under no circumstances can they replace actually thinking.
So, what I'm trying to say is that reading, or acquiring information in any other way, is only part of it, in fact, it's less than half of it, because most of the work is thinking about it, and subjecting what we have learned to scrutiny in order to digest, understand, and assimilate that information. I think that's the most important thing, knowing when to stop to think and reflect.
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