Thinking More And Clearly

Brain Wave, 10, p. 91.

Grunewald: "'What use is [intelligence] to any of us, in fact?'

Corinth: "'Would you go back, yourself?'

Grunewald: "'Yes, I would. It's not good to think too much or too clearly.'"

(I have found it convenient to re-present prose conversation as dramatic dialogue.)

Grunewald makes a value judgement. I have not experienced increased intelligence like him or Corinth but I do value the ability to think instead of just to repeat dogmas or cliches.

A World War II veteran told me that, "The French are cowards," and cited as evidence a single occasion when a French force had retreated instead of advancing with its allies! I am glad that I do not think like that. (I have since learned more about issues involving the French during the war but my indignant veteran did not tell me any of that although presumably it was in his mind somewhere.)

I value wisdom and goodness more than physical pleasure. I would prefer to be Socrates unhappy than a pig ecstatic. 

Although my thoughts have been neither intensified nor accelerated, I practice "sitting with" them in Zen meditation. This can be extremely unpleasant but - and this is my value judgement - it is preferable to remaining in the comparative lack of self-awareness that preceded meditation.

Brain Wave needs a passage about Zen practitioners. In any case, it is a novel about who and what we are and we can all look at ourselves through it - to be reread and reassessed several times.