With the site redesign, I’m including three sections on the home page, one which will share a bit about how I think. Trouble is, I don’t know how I think. I just do. So I’ve been giving it a lot of thought.
In general, our thoughts tend to slide between two things: our beliefs and our situations. Beliefs are fairly stable. Situations change. Beliefs are the result of all our internal conversations and the culmination of our external experiences. Situations are what’s happening right now.
Since situations change, it’s tough to judge someone’s character or personality based on them. Instead, I think who we are is tied more closely to our beliefs. But we can’t really know what our beliefs are unless they’re linked to specific situations. It’s like how 5 + 7 = 12 only makes sense if we apply it to apples or tables or something.
There’s the tension… between theory and practice, and that’s where how we think comes in. How we think is how we transfer our beliefs into our situations. It’s how we move from theory to practice.
That’s the question I’ve been asking myself… or maybe I should say, these are the questions I’ve been asking:
How do my beliefs affect how I respond to situations (as opposed to how someone else might respond)?
What’s the actual process like? Do I act on instinct, or do I ponder things for a while first? Or do one in some situations and the other in other situations? Why would that be?
Based on how I respond to situations, which beliefs are most important to me?
To understand how I connect the two, do I even know what my beliefs are, and do I even know how I act? Or am I just going off what I want my beliefs to be… and how I want to act?
What questions do I often ask? How do I often answer them? What’s that process like?
So yeah, sometimes I wonder why I majored in Philosophy and Economics. But not right now. :>)
