Driven to Understand & Clarify

Sitting with idle mind. At a stop sign or red light. Or maybe in an airport waiting lounge. What do you think about? Is your mind truly idle or is there a thread of thought running through it?

When you go to bed and are ready to fall asleep, what are the last thoughts running through your mind? Is your mind truly idle when you do finally fall asleep, slip away?

Same if you awake in the night; you turn over, maybe realign the arm or leg so it doesn’t cramp or wake you later. What are you thinking about then, if anything?

I often have the best thoughts at night. The shoulder twinges in pain (arthritis, you know) and stirs me from sleep. My mind is thinking. Maybe a word or a relationship between words, but an idea is emerging.

The other day I kept thinking about two words – ‘understanding’ and ‘clarity’; they appeared separate but near the same moment. Then another word urged itself to my consciousness – ‘driven’.  So I came up with – ‘driven to understand and clarify.’ And thus today’s title for this posting.

I thought about the phrase. I became determined to write about it the next day. I didn’t because other tasks were more urgent but this morning I’m thinking about the phrase again.

I guess this is important to me because most of my life I have been driven to understand things. I pick at an idea or a topic long enough to create statements about it that outlines my understanding of the subject, or more importantly, my misunderstanding of it. What are the limits of my knowledge on the subject? A lot of unknowns flood forward. We don’t always know what we don’t know but it shouldn’t keep us from the task of filling in the gaps. And of course doing so only uncovers more gaps. Life is like that! But the search restarts the effort to better understand the subject and learn more from others, other reference sources and the like.

Once this discovery mode is underway I begin experimenting with explaining the topic and what I learned about it. This is a test of my own understanding, of course. But it is also the primary means of academic research: identify an unknown topic or one with  sparse known facts; form questions that logically set parameters of scope and range of need to know more; then search for the answers to those questions; then form new questions the research begs for answers; search for those answers, and so on. The academic method follows with a summary of findings. What are the questions and answers developed throughout the search for information? And taken together, what do all these answers tell us? What conclusions about the world can we make with this information? How does one articulate such a summary? Does it pose more questions than it answers?

Entire universities have been formed to do this work and specialize in many nooks and crannies of mankind’s experience on this planet. Whole academic fields have been identified and thus were born History, Mathematics, Language Arts, Sciences of all sorts, Theology, Philosophy and so on.

Thinking begets concepts which begets questions which leads to a search for answers and then a sharing of the information. All of this leads to understanding. And clarifying all of the information is an act of communication and education. The latter is a process of bringing others into an understanding of what others have learned. In turn this sharing of awareness and knowledge sets new students free to search and expand their own understanding of the universe and do so with clarity.

I wonder how many people think kindly on this entire process or have experienced much of the above? I have my entire life. Is that normal? Is that what others experience, too?

I have no way of knowing that. I know it is why I write and read and study. I know it drives me to find solutions that groups express concern about. If it interests me enough I will become engaged with their work and lend a hand sorting things out. And discovering new solutions to old problems.

Is this process ever done? Need it be?

Well. More questions. To ponder and find answers for. I guess the search is on again! Another new topic to explore.

How could life ever be dull and meaningless?

Another good question!

November 1, 2016