The TOOLBOX of the Mind

MYSTERY TO LIVE

(Soren Kierkegaard)

Life is a mystery to live, not a problem to be solved.

The first time I heard this expression was in 1976 in rural Alabama from an unlikely source, an old retired army sergeant.  At that time I had just completed the last of nine years of post college education and passed a huge competitive exam that certified that “I knew it all.”  I had no reason to disagree with this profound sentiment other than my well-educated intellect, which thought it could reason its way through anything.  Medical education takes as long as it does because it takes 10,000 hours to become a master of anything.  What they don’t tell you in any educational environment is that reason, logic, and the intellect are wonderful tools, but they are not the only tools, and for many situations they are not even the best tools.  Living life to its fullest, is one of those situations in which no amount of “thinking” will ensure success.  It has been 40 years since I first heard those words and I still wear the golden handcuffs of the belief that I can use a superior intellect to power through everything. No matter how high quality a hammer I possess, it still is not the best tool to tighten a nut onto a bolt.   In fact, that “when your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail” truism has the potential to make a mess of whatever you are working on.

Einstein was as much a philosopher as he was a scientist. One of his favorite topics was everyday life and how we interpret it.  He gave us the definition of insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”  Known for being a genius he of course opined on that…”The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.” And his most important belief when it comes to the subject at hand… “The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination.”  Now that we have the internet in general and Wikipedia in particular, there is no shortage of knowledge at out fingertips, on our smart-phones, any hour of the day. The three super-faculties of the mind; Imagination, intuition, and insight, cannot be found online.  They come from within and are hidden by the power of reason, suppressed by the value that the world places on “book-learning” professional education, and all those enculturated and learned values that the rock group Supertramp railed against in “The logical Song” partially excerpted as follows:

 When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful, a miracle, it was beautiful, magical

And all the birds in the trees, well they'd be singing so happily, joyfully, playfully, watching me

But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible, logical, responsible, practical

And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable, clinical, intellectual, cynical

There are times when all the world's asleep

The questions run too deep for such a simple man

Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned

I know it sounds absurd but please tell me who I am

When life throws you a curve or two that you find difficult to handle, the inability to “solve” it is not because you are not smart enough, it may be because you reached for the wrong tool in the great toolbox of the mind.  You needed insight, or imagination, and you pulled out reasoning.