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today: HOW TO THINK - tip number one:
Ask yourself this one question.

Elsa's Creativity Space - Update

  Hello again, 

What people want, I've heard over and over again, is HOW TO material. How to nail. How to hammer. How to knit. How to sew. I couldn't see myself providing any of that.

And then it hit me. There is one How To area I'm rather an expert in, and where I'd be delighted to give tips and pointers. How To Think.

Today - How To Think tip number one.

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But first, three things. One. I do care about good thinking - I'm also having fun writing this. If you're reading this, I hope you too both care about good thinking and are having fun.

Two. Maybe, like me, you're one of the people sometimes frustrated by common inner barriers against thinking well. In that case, the tip may be useful for you with other people.

Three. My experience is that most people are not pleased with How To Think information. One is likely to come up against:

I'm entitled to my opinion. (More on this here.)
All opinions are equal.
I know what I believe.
Who are you to say that there's something wrong with my thinking?

One response is to directly tackle the opinon that all opinons are equal:
http://www.elsas-word-story-image-idea-music-emporium.com/not-thinking.html

Today's response. If I saw someone hammering their fingers, few would dispute that How To Hammer tips might be helpful. The person might even appreciate learning how to get a nail into the wall without sacrificing a finger in the process.

But How To Think - that's another story.

Why is that? That's another question altogether.

****

Here I will give just one big pointer that can help enormously with thinking.

TIP NUMBER ONE. Whatever the idea/thought/opinion/belief, ask this question: If this is so, what are the ramifications? Or more simply, if this is so, what does this mean? And if answering that question leads to nonsense, then the original belief also does not make sense.

Example. Many people hold that "everything happens for a reason." One student (I'm a college teacher) is convinced her younger brother got cancer for a reason - he's become a much more caring person.

If this is so, what does it mean? It means that for some god or cosmic force, the best way to teach her younger brother to be nicer, was to give him cancer.

Next step. Does it make any sense that some god or cosmic force could only teach, or would prefer to teach, her younger brother to be nicer by giving him cancer?

Another student asserts that, if it hadn't been for the Holocaust, Jews wouldn't have a country of their own.

Again, does it make sense that some deity or cosmic force held it would be good for Jews to have a country, but could only achieve that goal - or preferred to achieve it - by having six million Jews murdered?

It does not make sense.

There's a zero violence tolerance at my college. But for many people, it's fine if a deity or cosmic force metes out horror. Slavery. Rape. Murder and mayhem. Genocide. It happens for a reason, they say.

I say, think it through. That tenet makes no sense.

Yes, one can learn from horrors. But it makes no sense that some god or cosmic force can only get us to grow by having us endure calamity after calamity.

By the way, yes, it does make sense that things have causes - environmental, historic, genetic. It makes no sense. though, that everything we are living is happening for "a reason" - for some lesson, whatever that may be.

And that's it for How To Think tip number one.

The tip, once again: Think things through. Figure out: if this belief/idea/opinion is true, what other things must also be true?

****

For more thinking through, here's Stupid Opinion Number One - the opinion that we are all where we are meant to be. Try thinking that one through! Here's what I came up with:

http://www.elsas-word-story-image-idea-music-emporium.com/not-thinking.html

What if someone responds with, you're bringing up stuff that's too extreme? That brings us to How To Think tip number two. Coming soon.

****

Comments are very welcome. What's your favorite How To Think tip? And if you try my question on someone, how do they respond?

And with that,
All the best, as always,

Elsa
April 1, 2007 - but this is no April fooling

copyright © Elsa Schieder 2007
publishing house - FlufferDuff Impressions 2007

The Creativity Emporium
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Elsa's Creativity Emporium - Updates
April 2, 2007
vol 1, no 4

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Welcome to Elsa's Creativity Space

How To Think. First Tip: Ask and Answer This One Question.
Elsas Creativity Space Update, for what's happening
in Elsas Word Story Image Idea Music Emporium.
Now: tips for good creative thinking.

Elsas Creativity Space,
an all-round creativity site
exploring moments, memory, thoughts
through spoken word, song, story,
idea pieces, rap, journal, reflection, dreams, more.
Elsas Creativity Space.

Elsas creativity space is
Elsas creativity space is
Elsas creativity space

Gertrude Stein said, almost a century ago, a rose is a rose is a rose.

Just as a rose is a rose is a rose,
Elsas creativity space is
Elsas creativity space.

One could even go on to say that
a rose is a rose by any other name.

Likewise, one could hold that
Elsas creativity space is
Elsas creativity space
by any other name.

And many humans might not even notice if,
instead of
Elsas creativity space
I wrote
Elsas creativity place
or
Elsas creativity site.

Most humans would just register that it's
Elsas creativity something or other.

And it is.
But there's more.

The name is a signal.

This is
Elsas creativity space
Elsas creativity space
Elsas creativity space.

i am not calling mayday. This is not a distress signal.

It's a hello signal, come see me, notice me.

Hello,
it's Elsas creativity space
Elsas creativity space
calling all search engines
to find me on my island
deserted but fertile
enchanted but isolated
creative and creating but too too alone.

Who will help me through my dark?
Who will help me make my mark?
Who will help me build my ark?
I cannot do it alone.

I'm calling to people
but strangely it's not people
I am turning to for help.

It's the web
the world wide web.

I'm calling hoping the web will hear that
Elsas creativity space
Elsas creativity space
is calling, calling, calling with longing and hope.

signed,

Elsa

Zee

Not-me

Sexe-Tete

All of me

including my early childhood self, Dely,
who took the name Elsa

July 9 , 2006
somewhat revised, February 6, 2007

copyright © Elsa Schieder, 2007 - all rights reserved

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