Usually, starting to think seriously, people turn off what is happening and plunge into themselves. Is it right to switch off from what is happening and immerse yourself in yourself? — Not right. As soon as a person withdraws into himself, he stops doing anything. In fact, he moves into the position of the Victim. And what will you do if you do not control yourself, do not participate in external life? There is a feeling of helplessness.
Good. But is it possible to think, remaining in what is happening, without plunging into oneself?
The answer is yes! It’s not always easy, but it’s possible. It all depends on how simple or difficult a particular thought process is for you, how much attention it requires. If the question is difficult, you need to think very carefully, for this you need to fully concentrate: you transfer all your attention to the inner plane and, in this case, disconnect from reality. And if you think about something simple for you, then it is not difficult for you to think about something, and at the same time do some simple external affairs. For example, talking on the phone with a friend. Or consult a client. If the question is simple for you, then you are simultaneously looking at the client’s reaction and thinking about his situation. Your attention is quite enough for this, although you still need to train.
But there is one addition to this: learn to think, placing in your imagination the object of deliberation not inside yourself, but holding it in front of you. If you give a task to your child: “Look at the box of blocks, but you can’t touch the blocks with your hands right now. Can you find a long cube among the cubes that will connect those two towers over there?” — and point to the towers in front of him. The child will quickly find the right cube. In his imagination, he tries on cubes for towers, and this happens outside. He will think, that is, work in the inner plane, but his attention will be on the towers — he remains in reality, remains outside.
Learn to think, keeping your attention on a real interlocutor. Imagine him smiling. Did you see his smiling face? Imagine his face looking thoughtful… dissatisfied… surprised… I think you did it. And you did all this in your imagination, you did it on the inner plane — and at the same time looked outward! You perfectly saw the interlocutor, you were in reality — and at the same time you worked on the inner plane.
I believe that you succeeded: firstly, because the task is not difficult, and secondly, because at the University you are constantly taught not to dive into yourself, but to remain outside, in reality. So accustom yourself: in the process of a conversation, you need to think and act not “withdrawing into yourself”, but outside: you are conducting a dialogue and at the same time observing the reaction of the interlocutor. Already depending on his reaction, you are building a further conversation. It won’t work right away, it will work later. It is possible and necessary to learn at the same time to be in deeds, in conversations, to instantly react with deeds to this or that, that is, to be outside, and at the same time to think, analyze, work in the “internal plane”.
There are people who just have a habit: just a little, raise their eyes to the sky and dive into themselves, flying away with their thoughts somewhere far, far away. Or even look at you, but you understand by the eyes and facial expression that the interlocutor swam, the interlocutor is no longer with you. He is somewhere thinking. Yes, he just has the wrong habit of thinking, turning himself off from reality. If this sometimes happens to you, it’s not scary, you can retrain yourself. This is not innate in you, we have learned everything since childhood.
It is better to teach a child from childhood to think correctly, that is, always think in front of him and at the same time always be in reality. Children learn this quickly.
Thinking ahead begins in childhood with a game of blocks. «Why cubes?» — you ask. Because to play dice you need to have a good idea where to put a particular dice. The child takes the cubes in his hands, moves them, twists them, compares them in shape, in size, applies them to other cubes — he thinks and constructs at the same time in front of him. Thus, the child develops imagination and spatial thinking.
Why, by the way, do women develop spatial thinking worse than men? — In fact, women are not inferior to men in anything, but if a girl did not play cubes in her childhood, her spatial thinking will be developed worse.
How to think in front of you, taking the game of cubes as a basis? It’s very simple: instead of cubes, we take concepts or images — which is more convenient for whom, and twist these images or concepts in front of us, substituting all the new ones from the right side — as in cubes. Nikola Tesla, a brilliant inventor, said: “In order for me to make a new engine, I do not have to assemble it. I can imagine him, and I will see everything that happens to him. Develop imagination — it helps to think.
And what is needed in order to learn how to build a conversation “in front of you” in the course of a conversation? This is helped by the skill of writing with real text: the habit of tracking the thesis and the evidence chain of theses, links and illustrations, introduction and conclusion.
Practice, you will succeed!
And remember: scrolling in your head is not the same as digging inside yourself. It means to see in front of you.