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Sept 3, 2010
“The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend”.
– Robertson Davies
Canadian novelist, playwright and journalist
“Look, there he goes again staring on a blank wall”, remarked my mom. My grandmother responded, “Either he is naka-tanga (stupefied) or there is something in that young mind that goes so deep”.
They talked behind my back as if I couldn’t hear. I didn’t care. I was a kid. I loved gazing through our kitchen window staring at the twinkling stars. I enjoyed being alone in the comforts of my own thoughts to the extent that I volunteered to throw garbage every night just so I could momentarily escape the loving noise of a seven-member household. I cherished the solitary walks through the pavements of my barrio. While stray cats and rabid dogs replaced the drunks around the corner in front of the sari-sari store, I thought. I wallowed on the images, I stored people’s faces, and I recalled the lurid details of sounds and sights. Then I left. I had nothing else but imprints of thoughts embedded from a young mind.
“One day, I will fly away, I will go astray in search of that elusive day when wings will sing the praises of the sun, and love will not feel the feelings of pain, while dreams drone the dreams of being one, and loneliness will flee together with the breeze that sways with our trees and the humming birds will chant my poems and weave my world as I fly away…some day….”
I did fly and then wandered through various places where thinking was an essential activity. I thought to understand the archived beauty of architectural ruins. I thought to enjoy the remnants of ruined glory. And I thought so that I could even think deeper before I continued the steps of past enjambments. I beg to disagree on a style that condescends to the shallowness of those who prefer not to understand or those who misuse the abilities of their mind. I strongly believe that the persistence and dominance of art could proliferate even among the most banal receptors of anything consumable, thereby converting a secular taste into something more hallow.
Thinking is a basic human need. It is the process that separates us from the purely sentient tribe of the animal kingdom. Between the eye, the brain and the mind, thoughts pervade. Images convince us to recall every phantasm of thought conceived. “And as the mind stretches”, so said Ralph Waldo Emerson, “it will never go back to its original dimensions”.
Since the eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend, thinking functions to provide us with the tools to recall the etched images we used to carry. The brain is a corruptible organ of the human body. It is a mystery to unravel the map of thoughts across the gray matter buried inside our skull. Yet, we can only understand thinking and use it properly when it is allowed to go in cycles, every round completing another level, every circle improving its own projections.
Thinking is erroneously associated to that of being highly educated, attributed to those who are glib or tagged among those who play with elegant rhetoric. Although it is true that expressing one’s thoughts amongst those who are obliged to do something is not a mandatory requirement, it is still through thinking that we are propelled into actual activities. Without thoughts, actions cannot stay put. In fact, without thoughts, actions cannot take place.
While thinking is expressed through freedom, it would be more beneficial if its hurdles involved parameters within certain requirements. That which is wild cannot be contained. And that which cannot be contained cannot spread anything lest it springs the stages of a missed growth. The emergence of new media and the proliferation of the boob tube improved the conditions of devices utilized in the assessment for today’s intellectual acts. Thinking as a response against the endless MTV is an antidote against technological naiveté as well. And thinking in terms of homework and reading allow neurons to keep on thinking, obviating the webs of stale and empty stares. Yet, when thinking is ferried to the strong currents of those who cannot accept it, the rest could be a silent retort amongst misguided discussions. As we have the right to a free speech, we also have the right to think. While we ruminate on our rights to a free speech, we will also maintain the colors of our world from fadingas we cling and adhere to the questions of so many quasi-students.
Thinking is a basic human need. We cannot do anything without it, cannot produce a healthy client without it, and cannot establish anything without valid reasons. As such, anyone dressed down and those with pinstripes can be offered small courses to simulate the act of thinking. And that is not because they were garbed in the monotone of convenience. While reading, a congruent phrase pops up. The built in software whose spread of risks is controlled by a manufacturer reduces employee benefits while its process indulges in so many incongruent parties. I was once told that when we excel on anything in the household given to us, we will most probably leave out through the garage door anyway.
The rest is a painting story, peppered with long walks and light hearted commentaries. The eyes will not function independently from what we think we see. In the same token, the guarantees inserted in our papers are probably meta-symbolic. Now that the how has been revealed, our thinking needs dissection. An evaluation and an assessment to gauge how our tides are flown is on his own. Weather will soon be dark.
While I prepare my eyes for slumber, I leave the last breathe for the day. I am thinking on oleas’ cookings; thinking on how to expound my activity. Again I am thinking in the same way when new things are sought. I am back to the beginning of my lines…
Look, there he goes again staring on a blank wall”, remarked my mom. My grandmother responded, “Either he is naka-tanga (stupefied) or there is something in that young mind that goes so deep”.