Op/Ed: If I Don’t Think, Then I am Naught

Over 400 years ago, “first philosophy” was borne from the consciousness awakening “cogito ergo sum” via Rene Descartes. “I think, therefore I am” is a cornerstone in our hyper-individual culture. From this, we have built tall, immovable self-perceptions; If I think the thing, it is the truth to me and that’s that with that :)

Our minds are an amalgamation of interpretations of sense perception, narratives, and pattern recognition. Because we survive through efficient categorization and forging the “path of least resistance”, our thinking selves receive and process these inputs and move on to the next categorization. This is a perpetual motion process that, in a culture of “go-go-go” and “do-do-do” more and more, doesn’t have the space for “stop and reflect” in the same way that our parents and their parents had.

In Buddhism, the ultimate emptiness of all things is the foundation upon which all thought and reflection is built on. In a moment when “mindfulness” and “meditation” have become nebulous (big thanks to capitalism), returning to the roots has to be the first step to initiating real and sustaining personal change and strength.

For narrators that have written their stories in pen, returning to the true empty nature of things can feel like a loss that initiates a cascade of self-protecting fail-safes. If we are to challenge our categorizations, especially the ones we’ve held close or are deeply entrenched, what does that mean about our “selves”? If we don’t think, what are we? And if we don’t think the way we’ve always thought, are we “me”?

The answer, just like the “chicken v egg”, lies in an acceptance of both. Before and without chickens, eggs exist. Before you were a thinking thing, things were things to other things. The stories existed, exist, and will continue to exist. When your story exists painfully (as is inevitable for all of us), expanding your view- killing your ego- breaks patterns and deprograms the perpetual-motion narrative. Meditation on “thinkinglessness” quite literally uninstalls your pain-points, creating drive space for new opportunities.

Op/Ed: Make a Choice- On Purpose

You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make the horse drink. You can give your dog some cheese, point right to it, and they’ll still go sniffing in all the wrong places. Change psychology, particularly in this ultra-informed population, has begun to feel outdated at best, jaded at worst. These musings come from my years of struggling through (and eventually recovering from) these same afflictions.

Each day I am presented with various forms of “I saw a TikTok that said X, so I thought I would give it a try”, “I know what I need to do to make meaningful change, I just haven’t yet”, and the famous “I can change at anytime, I’d just prefer that the variables be perfectly aligned with my expectations before doing that”. It feels a lot like talking to a wall.

How do we reconcile that pursuing our dreams feels at odds with caring for ourselves in the present? Have we lost touch completely with our intuition, or whatever it is that guides us towards our goals? Or, is it that our ego has commandeered our inner compass, insatiable unless met with unbound success? As always, more questions than answers.

I recently sat with a line from the book “Inner Excellence” by Jim Murphy that read “The Ego is obsessed with outcomes” and, man, did that hit. As I’ve sought to unravel these blockages in my life decisions, this sentiment is echoed through the hallways of my past. Ego as a concept has historically been tough for me to understand.

At it’s base, Ego is the internalization of the performance that we put on daily. That performance is determined by the lives that we’ve lived, the interactions we’ve had. The narratives we’ve curated about our past unfold in the present and influence the outcomes of our future. We are the cruise directors on our life’s journey, and the Ego infiltrates our passage through protective mechanisms based on our past. At some point, the ego hijacks our inner guide and we lose the creative power of multitudes in pursuit of the singular endgame.

All this to say that we can lead ourselves to water, we can take ourselves right to the door of satisfaction and, instead, turn just to the left, choosing to look out the window and get so lost in the view that we neglect to actually get outside. Knowledge is power, and turning into the shadows can elucidate more tools for the fight- so, while answers may not fully materialize, contemplation is a gift! Keep searching, experimenting, and adjusting to meet the moment. That, I think, is the greatest joy of life.