Tag: Thinking

THE ART OF THINKING FAST

“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it.” – Henry Ford

Photo by Polina Zimmerman on Pexels.com

Thinking requires effort and in a world where every thing is just a click away, it’s no wonder that so many people would indulge in instant gratification rather than take time to engage in impactful thinking. Why bother with thinking when one can scroll endlessly through social media feed and Tik Tok videos? I mean let’s be real, who has time to sit down and ponder the mysteries of the universe when there are new episodes of your favorite shows to binge-watch?

In fact thinking can be exhausting. It requires concentration, mental energy and the willingness to question one’s own beliefs and assumptions. Let’s not forget that thinking also requires a certain type of intelligence, not every person has the ability to come up with coherent thoughts or ideas, and the effort required to do so can be overwhelming but not impossible.

What Is Thinking?

Psychologist define thinking as a cognitive process that involves mental processes such as perception, attention, memory, problem solving to generate new ideas, form judgements, and make decisions. Thinking can be broadly divided into two categories, controlled thinking which is slower and effortful and automatic thinking which is fast, effortless and largely unconscious. Then there is divergent and convergent thinking. A person who thinks divergently will be able to generate multiple solutions or ideas to a single problem where as a person who thinks convergently will focus on one single solution or idea that is the most logic or efficient.

Another important aspect of thinking is metacognition, it refers to our ability to monitor and control our own thinking process. It includes our ability to recognize when we don’t know about something, self evaluating our own thinking and problem solving strategies and also being able to adjust our thinking as needed. For example metacognition practices have shown to increase a student’s ability to transfer or adapt their learning to new concepts and tasks fast by gaining a level of awareness about their subject matter. So if you want to simply put it metacognition is thinking about one’s own thinking.

How to develop the habit of thinking fast?

Make minor unimportant decisions fast : For example, challenge yourself to choose your next meal in less than a minute, or when you go to a clothing store decide that you would buy what you want in half an hour and leave the store.

Practice doing the things you are good at faster: If you are an artist decide that you will finish a painting in 2 hours. See how fast you can do the things you are good at and take it as a challenge.

Practice meditation: There are many benefits to practicing meditation on a daily basis. It calms our body and mind and also build a more efficient brain by stimulating the formation of new brain cells and neural connection. Meditation also helps strengthen the communication between the brain cells which in turn speeds up mental processes such as the ability to think, learn and concentrate.

Stop multitasking there are many researches that suggest that it is less efficient to multitask. This is because multitasking can interfere with our working memory, reduce our concentration on each task hinder our performance and increase the time that we take to do each task. So watching TV when doing your homework may not be a good idea after all.

Being someone who likes to take time with thinking and making decision in not always a bad trait to have but there are situations where fast thinking and decision making can lead to a number of advantages like being able to do your work faster and avoid procrastination or it can help you seem smarter, confident and help you feel comfortable around others without the feeling of being left out. Even though there are genetical factors and natural talent that can make some people faster thinkers than others, there are plenty of ways to improve your thinking speed. But always remember that it won’t happen overnight, but with a little bit of effort and daily practice fast thinking is a skill that everyone can develop.

Thinking out of the box

This is an image of Thinking out of the box.
Photo by Ivan Bertolazzi on Pexels.com

No one remains a stranger to this phrase, But there is nothing more vague and inarticulate than this phrase. From the moment we are born into this world, we are being directed to behave and do things in a certain way. When we reach adolescence, we no longer have to be told to behave in a certain way as we begin to realise what the society expects from us and behave in accordance to their expectations. Finally, when we enter adulthood, we become champions in complying to societal expectations. 

After going through all these stages in life, while in a group discussion or a meeting, a team leader or a manager asks us to think outside the box. That’s unfair. Nobody taught us to think for ourselves, even if we did, it fell in the societal pattern of studying, marrying, rearing kids, and retiring. 

What is thinking out of the box?

In a professional terminology, thinking out of the box basically means coming up with a new idea (because the contemporary ones didn’t work) that would reap huge benefits for the company. In terms of life, thinking out of the box means being indifferent to societal norms and expectations as you do things your own way. Although my monologue above is defensive towards societal expectations, it is often impractical as not all of us can afford to waste our time and resources on carving a new path, when we can comply with our society and become financially stable and independent.   

How to think outside the box?

Nevertheless, we can still incorporate the habit of thinking outside the box to make a difference in our lives when needed. Thinking out of the box does not require racking your brains till you come up with a feasible idea. 

Take up a new course

Enrolling yourself for a new course will open doors to learning about new and unfamiliar things. Learning new things will influence your thinking in different areas and aspects of your life. Thereafter when you are confronted with a problem, you will be equipped with knowledge from the specialisation in a certain field that can aid you with thinking out of the box. 

Daydream

Although it sounds counter intuitive, daydreaming is an important factor that influences your thinking out of the box. While daydreaming, your brain is led astray from the logical aspects and helps you make connections and co-relations that you couldn’t come up with while racking your brain. So, turn your attention away from the problem you are facing and let your imagination go wild!

Read a book from a new genre

Thinking out of the box would require you to do things differently or try new things. So how about reading from a different genre than the one you usually prefer? Try nonfiction or didactical if you have always preferred fiction. Fiction might have accustomed you to think in a certain manner. To break that monotony in thinking, reading from a different genre might just do the trick. 

Pen a poem

The motive behind doing this relatively weird stuff during a serious confrontation is to break free from rational and logical thinking and invite new possibilities and ideas into the situation. Try writing a poem on the basis of your problems. As your mind begins wandering to support your efforts in poetry, you expand your horizon of thinking, leading to thinking outside the box. 

So there you go, a vague article on an equally vague topic. Thinking out of the box. Do drop in your thoughts in the comment box. Now that’s a rhyme scheme created which can be considered as the first two lines of a poem. I was wondering how to end this article so I made a rhyme scheme, a.k.a a poem. 

Thinking through Act

“Acting is behaving truthfully under imaginary circumstances.”

Acting is basically an art of imitation or reflection or representation. It is the quality of utilizing your own spirit body and mind in being someone else. Actors on the stage do not show themselves up there, but they show the character they get into to people.”  Acting is equivalent to forgetting the original self.

actor-on-stage

Acting is not about being someone different. It’s finding the similarity in what is apparently different, then finding myself in there.

Benefits of acting

There are many benefits of acting :

  1.  It is a self-cleansing art.
  2. It helps us to forget ourselves, our worries, or goals, our life pressure, etc for the same time.
  3. It helps us to “be present”. Through acting, we enjoy “the moment”. We are at “the moment”.
  4. It helps us to understand the small little worlds as well as the big worlds of various people around us.
  5. Every act gives us a different perception that adds to build our character.

Methods of acting

  1. Stanislavski/Strasberg/Method: It uses affective memory considering our past. We need to relate to our past events. It draws situations from real life and there is an “emotional recall” as we get in touch with your emotional self.
  2. Meisner Method: It is the method based on the usage of imagination only. We need to enforce us to ask questions to ourselves. We ask the questions “what if”. We need time to contemplate under what situation will I be like this and considers the hypothetical future.

Voice Acting

Our emotions come out of our voices. Talking to a person over a voice call, we can immediately interpret if he is happy, sad, angry, guilty, lonely, or anything else. The Voice of a person gives a strong sense of the feelings of a person. Therefore, in addition to bringing the character by our body movements, we also need to bring out the character through our voice. Indeed, the voice acting is so powerful that it has opened up a separate domain for artists. Voice acting by podcasts are becoming popular day by day. It is easy to access and very interesting helping listeners to create a world of their own by listening to the voice artists. In addition, in these difficult times of pandemic, where shooting is difficult due to the rules of social distancing, podcasts are the way for artists.

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Irrespective of the form of acting, the main trick is to make your character your best friend. We need to study up on character traits; read testimonials, interviews, or watch videos. Then, we need to try to bring the traits through voice. Traits, in general, depending on age, geographical location, any distinct characteristic, or disability. There is a need to develops a culture of responsive acting. It is also important to tackles self-consciousness. It is an effective way of creating the world around us. An actor is an energy bank, always excited about his character and his story.

“Acting is a sport. On stage you must be ready to move like a tennis player on his toes. Your concentration must be keen, your reflexes sharp; your body and mind are in top gear, the chase is on. Acting is energy. In the theatre people pay to see energy.”