i-TFTD #242: Thinking Deep and Wide

#242-1. When policy fails try thinking.
-Anon

#242-2. Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so.
-Bertrand Russell

#242-3. I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.
-Neil Gaiman

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A few schools in the world, thanks to Edward de Bono, actually have thinking skills taught separately as a subject. Often we think we think when we are actually quickly jumping to a prejudiced conclusion or pampering our emotions. True thinking has to be dispassionate. Continued thinking is harder than most of us admit, fatigue sets in as soon as we skim the obvious parameters in a situation and the mind goes into a loop over the same thoughts. We have to t! rain the mind to think through, to generate a larger set of options. Expanding awareness on a variety of subjects–relevant and seemingly irrelevant—helps.