Approaching Storm
Saturday, it snowed on the Palouse.
I notice now that the image above is a little over sharpened but I’ll leave it.
We had a great discussion with the book reading group this morning about wisdom. I can’t remember who said it but recently I heard ‘the wise don’t believe their thoughts’. This is pretty tough for most people to understand. We want to identify with our thoughts because they feel important, relevant and interesting, or at least entertaining. Yet wise people and creative people will tell you that wisdom and creativity increase in intensity the quieter the thoughts become. In fact there seems to be an inverse relationship between wisdom and creativity, and our thinking. We have all experiences this at the so call peak moments when life flowed with out thought rather that was in sports, in nature or in some creative endeavor. I’m sure you’ve experienced how unclear things become when the mind races.
We can’t give up thinking. Minds think like hearts beat. It is too easy to let the thinking carry us away and distract us from what is happening right now. Too easy to attach meaning to our mental creations and then have to defend them. It seem more healthy to see thoughts for what they are - just stories we tell ourselves. I’m enjoying relaxing my mind and giving my thinking a break. You should try it too.
