Why should anyone spend time looking at the topic of thinking? What is the benefit? Does it generate any income, can one make money with it? Probably not, for that one needs to direct one’e thoughts on an activity that someone is ready to pay for. For the insights that originate from an observation of thinking itself there might also be a buyer, but selling is not my motivation. I do not hope to gain a reward in the shape of money or material riches from my occupation with thinking, but the ability to know truth by myself, and thus seize the idea of freedom. This goal can hardly be achieved in a few years, but coming closer to it is possible.
“And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
John 8:32
Now some could wonder why it takes an occupation with thinking to come closer to freedom. After all, it would be simpler to be told the truth by experts? Usually one can only guess how and why experts come up with what they say, but at least one does not need to think or understand what thinking is and how it works. However, Jesus would not talk about knowing if it was only about believing whatever is announced by an expert or authority. There would be no freedom in that. We shall know truth independently. We shall act based on what we truly know and understand, because we have enabled us to see what is really necessary and needed. Not simply follow instructions in good faith. We must recognize when someone lies to us or when something is false. To do that, we must seize our ability to think. Because nothing is given to us except thought and perception. And knowledge cannot originate in perception only. Thought is a necessity, if we want to live up to the idea of a human being.
Some could argue that it is better to use the time we have to make money, and then buy freedom with it, instead of trying to seize it through truth. Most of us learned that we achieve our goals and wishes with money. And for some goals that works. But freedom cannot be bought with money. Certainly there are products offered that promise us freedom. That enable a larger range of motion, faster locomotion, faster accomplishment of tasks. More time for what matters is promised to us. You are welcome to try and buy all the products that exist. But as long as I am afraid to loose my money, loose my property, loose my health, loose my life, I cannot be free. The unknown scares us. The answer is courage, to approach the unknown, so we can understand it. And the truth about the unknown cannot be bought either. It cannot be summarized and preserved in a book. We must get to know it on our own, in every moment, for every moment. The path to freedom goes through truth.
We cannot expect that truth is once revealed to us, making us free for all times to come. We are continuously confronted with new situations, new actions, new statements about threats and dangers, with new discoveries, theories and forecasts. Ans we constantly need to make a judgment, say what is true and what is false and what is uncertain. The latter must be clarified or set aside as irrelevant. Also, a statement can be true now, but does not need to remain true forever. Statements like “It is raining.” are true for for some time, but not always and everywhere. Freedom must be continuously earned, with a tireless effort for truth. The primary objective here ist to know the truth about our own reasons to act. It is only indirectly about the statements of other people, when they affect out thoughts and steer our actions.
What drives us are the conflicts we feel and the wishes we have. The conflicts we want to solve, and the wishes we want to fulfill or get fulfilled. Conflicts can concern only us, for example when we observe something that does not match our experience. The can also include other people, who we are fighting with. Sometimes we do not even want to solve a conflict with a another person. That is always because we have an internal conflict as well, which we need to solve first, but might have suppressed. Suppressed conflicts prevent us to know the truth about our reasons to act. For this reason we must uncover them. If we cannot solve them straight away, we must accept them in a first step and make peace with them. Then we know how much they impact our actions, and we accept it. Only our wishes for the future can then give us the strength we need to eventually solve the conflict in due time. When there are no more suppressed conflicts, we can tell because there will be no more conflicts in our interpersonal relationships that we neither want to nor can solve directly.