The thinking mind is ‘a machine for turning a profit’. It is there for solving problems, in other words. This is very useful at the same time as being (potentially) highly dangerous, it can be a double-edged sword; it’s dangerous because unless there’s oversight with regard to the operation of this machine then everything straight away flips over and we find that thought now has a different role, a role we didn’t ask it to take on, which is the role of defining reality. If thought is left unattended, as it were, then the whole world becomes a problem to be solved.
When the whole world or, as we might also say, reality itself, becomes a problem to be solved then we are pushed into this very narrow, very unsatisfactory, and very rigid way of relating to the world and this is the way that we call ‘controlling’. When our situation is seen as a problem then controlling as a modality of existing becomes the only possible response, the only possible way to proceed.
If we don’t control or maintain the upper hand with respect to what is allowed to happen or not, then this equals ‘failure’, this equals ‘being defeated’.
This is of course implicit in the word ‘problem’ – problems have to be fixed because of the very fact that they are defined as problems. Problems – just so long as we accept them as such – compel us to try to fix them.
It isn’t hard to see that when everything gets flipped over in this way (such that the nature of reality itself is now the problem) then this isn’t actually such a great thing – we have been very badly cheated, in fact. We are being taken for a ride. Thought has conned us into believing that life is something we have to earn, something we have to deserve, which raises the very grim possibility that we don’t deserve it, that we don’t have what it takes to earn it; others might, we think dolefully, but we don’t.
As James Carse says,
If the purpose of a finite game is to conclude play as a winner, then play itself acquires a distinctively negative quality.
You see, the mind loves to make sense of things. It’s like a little factory churning out solutions and explanations. And that’s great! We need our minds to untangle the knots that life throws our way. From puzzles to predicaments, our trusty mental machinery is there to save the day
But here’s the catch: when our thoughts operate without supervision, they can run amok. They start to believe that their sole purpose is to define the very fabric of reality. Suddenly, everything becomes a problem to be solved, an enigma waiting to be deciphered. The mind, in its overzealousness, takes on a grandiose role it was never meant to play.
Imagine a world where every moment, every experience, is reduced to a puzzle to be solved. The colors of a sunset, the laughter of a child, the gentle rustling of leaves—they all lose their inherent beauty and become mere riddles for the mind to unravel. It’s like trying to capture the wind in a jar or dissect the essence of a heartfelt embrace. Some things are meant to be felt, savored, and experienced—not examined by the relentless gears of thought.
When left to its own devices, the mind becomes a tyrant, reducing the richness of life to a series of equations. And that’s where the danger lies. We risk losing touch with the magic and wonder of existence. Life becomes a never-ending quest for answers, a perpetual state of dissatisfaction. We become trapped in a mental prison, forever seeking solutions instead of embracing the beauty of the unknown.
Some beautiful Rudyard Kipling words from “If“
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!