Think.

Have you ever thought?

Well obviously you have. You’re
thinking right now, “What is wrong with this writer? Why am I
even reading this?”

But I don’t mean that kind of
thought.

thought (thôt)

v.

Past tense and past participle of
think.

n.

1. The act or process of
thinking; cogitation.

2. A product of thinking.

3. The faculty of thinking or
reasoning.

Wow. Thanks dictionary. You could
use a lesson from my elementary school teachers, who taught me not to
use a word or its root in its own definition.

So what does think mean? According
to an online dictionary I found, “direct one's mind toward
someone or something; use one's mind actively to form connected
ideas.”

Ignore the first part.

Use one's mind actively to form
connected ideas.

Alright, so you’ve done that
too. But on a small scale. A tiny, miniscule scale.

Why is the sky blue?

No, don’t answer that. I know
why. But there was a time when I didn’t know, and same for you.
Maybe you thought then. Let’s be honest, you probably weren’t
considering some scientific explanation. When this thought first
occurred to you, it’s likely you were pretty new to the world,
just beginning to grasp the concept of your existence. You knew very
little about the world, and collected that small information a put it
into a little pile to figure out the answer.

That’s thinking. But still on
a small scale.

It’s a very good example,
though. You were young when you asked that question. New. Thinking
happens when we are new. To something. Anything. It can be as
small as a book. You might think a little at the beginning, when you
don’t know all there is to know.

Small children are great at
thinking, because they have so many things to think about. We really
underestimate them. The world needs more thinkers.

But little kids grow up fast. And
they forget what they thought about. They fill their minds with
meaningless things and willingly become absorbed into this sponge of
the human race.

Maybe you thought a tiny, tiny
bit at the beginning of this. You knew I couldn’t be so
daft to assume that I believed you had never thought in your life.
You thought about why I asked.

But I still haven’t gotten to
the big part. The real thinking. Not everyone will ever think
like this, remember. So it’s ok if you don’t. I just
strongly recommend you do.

Let’s start with life, shall
we?

Life. It’s pretty cool. You’re
glad it’s there, but you never questioned it.

Unless you did. In which case,
congratulations. That’s the first step.

We say “the
miracle of life” all the time. The question “why does
life exist?” has become a cliché. You probably haven’t
given these phrases a second thought. You should. Why? It’s a
miracle because one little bacterium jumpstarted every form of life.
It’s a miracle because none of us would be alive if not for
that one bacterium. And “why does life exist?” is an
unanswered question. That’s what thinkers do, answer the
unanswered.

Life is pretty weird. Describe to me
what it is. Right now. No cheating. Hey! I saw that! One of you
looked it up in the dictionary! It’s ok, go ahead. Doesn’t
matter. The dictionary’s wrong anyway, as far as thinking goes.
It says, “The condition that distinguishes animals and plants
from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth,
reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding
death.” That’s science. Don’t get me wrong, I love
science, but science is forbidden in thinking. It’s ok if your
thoughts’ roots are in science, in fact they usually are, just
don’t include it. It’s the rules.

Of course thinking has rules! You
thought this would be easy?

Tell me, with no science, what life
is. Imagine I know nothing, but I can comprehend what you say. Tell
me.

See, it doesn’t matter that I
can’t hear your response. You don’t have one. At least,
not a decent one. No offense. It’s ok. I don’t have an
answer either. Nobody does. That’s why you likely haven’t
questioned life before. When humans don’t know something, we
either make something up and argue that we’re right, or push it
to the side and ignore it.

But thinkers are those who come
close to answering.

If you’re one of the few who
have questioned life, then you are destined to be a thinker.

Some of you might say, “So is
a thinker basically a philosopher?”

True, thinkers and philosophers seem
similar, and thinkers can be philosophers (also vice versa).

But that’s from a
non-thinker’s perspective. They are very different.

Or maybe you believe you’re a
thinker already. It sounds pretty simple, there’s no perfect
way to describe it.

But I can tell you what it’s
like

People with the capability to be
thinkers are the people who can listen to Einstein’s theories,
and organize them in their brain before their head starts to spin,
which is pretty impressive in itself. Thinkers are the ones who add
to those theories.

You’ll be sitting, lying down,
standing up, whatever, and there will be nothing to distract you. You
are blocked off from the outside world.

Thinking.

Then suddenly, you realize
something.

You feel like you are bursting. You
look up, run outside of your mind and take a look at the world
through a whole new light. You can see so much more than you did
before, and you can’t imagine what it was like to live such a
bland life, immersed by ignorance.

If you have never felt that, you are
not a thinker.

Not yet.

Hold on, you’re still here?
Really?

I guess you thought thinking was
pretty cool, didn’t you?

Maybe you are already a thinker.
Which is awesome.

But you probably aren’t.
Become one.

If you decided to read this entire
thing, then you probably can.

Just remember what homo sapiens
means.

Man who thinks.

That’s right. Thinking is what
sets us, humans, off from all other animals. Thinking makes us the
superior species.

But also know that you will get no
recognition. Zero. Zip. Nada. No matter how much you do, how much you
discover, how many light bulbs go off in your head, nobody is going
to care.

Basically you’re Nikola Tesla,
especially the light bulb part.

And you have to be ok with that.
because when you’re a thinker, you understand that life is more
than fame and glory.

You might never become a thinker.
But maybe you will. And if you do, maybe someday you’ll find a
nexus to all of the things you have thought about, and you’ll
have a full understanding of them. That’s how geniuses are
created.

They think.