In an era of fortune cookie philosophy when instant gratification is too slow, is it any wonder that we no longer read or study or meditate or think? We take a cute phrase and make it into words to live by. Always looking for the quick, the easy, the simple, we leave our thinking to others and blindly accept what they say; the more clever the more profound we perceive it to be. Simple and complex have become reversed and the complicated has become irrelevant. The quick fix, miracle drug and easy thought have replaced hard work, study and reasoning. We blurt out sound bites for our own satisfaction without ever intending to listen while a true exchange of ideas gets further and further away.
Humans are distinguished from the lower forms of life, first and foremost by our ability to communicate. Without this ability, we can never know if the other is thinking and if so on what level. Uncommunicated affection may as well not exist. Stones and trees cannot in any way communicate and hence we can never know if they have any thought or consciousness. Animals communicate in varying degree. Some are able to show affection, joy, sorrow and other human emotions. Some even are able to show a rudimentary reasoning ability. It is only the human who has the potential to communicate on a higher level and demonstrate a wide range of reasoning and thought. And yet, so often we give it up for the expedient.
When we abandon our communication and reasoning skills we are giving up some of that which makes us human. It is not just for the academician or the monk to think and reason. It is for all of us, individually and collectively. Thinking critically and communicating carefully; that is the stuff that our humanity is made of.
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