Book Notes - The Road Less Travelled and Beyond Created: 1 May 2021 Source: [https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=4wn8KQAAAEAJ&pg=GBS.PA20.w.0.0.0.4](https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=4wn8KQAAAEAJ&pg=GBS.PA20.w.0.0.0.4) Here in evernote : [Book - The road less travelled and beyond: spiritual growth in an age of anxiety](evernote:///view/463671/s5/3b629ae3-cd88-3f05-80b6-1a6a71e8f681/57ba5125-cfd0-4795-9c56-4f9115b91ae9/) --- # Part 1: Crusade Against Simplism ## Chapter 1: Thinking - The problem of simplistic thinking is when we think in binary terms. - One of the significant dilemmas we face both as individuals and as a society is simplistic thinking—or the failure to think at all. It isn’t just a problem, and it is a problem. - Thinking takes effort, and it is not a linear process. - Thinking is difficult. Thinking is complex. And thinking is—more than anything else—a process, with a course or direction, a lapse of time, and a series of steps or stages that lead to some result. To think well is a laborious, often painstaking process until one becomes accustomed to being “thoughtful.” Since it is a process, the course or direction may not always be clear-cut. Not all the steps or stages are linear, nor are they always in the same sequence. Some are circular and overlap with others. Not everyone seeks to achieve the same result. Given all this, if we are to think well, we must be on guard against simplistic thinking in our approach to analyzing crucial issues and solving the problems of life. - Brain parts - the Old Brain (Reptilian brain) serve the purpose of monitoring physiological needs. Very basic and primitive functions - Midbrain is larger and more complex, governing emotions. - New brain (cerebral cortex) - The ability to make judgements, process information. Thinking. - Learning is crucial to our ability to grow in awareness, to think independently, and to master the knowledge necessary for surviving and thriving in life. - When we are young, our dependency on those who raise us shapes our thinking, and what we learn. This lengthy dependence put us at risk of developing thinking patterns that may become ingrained. - When we are young, our dependency on those who raise us shapes our thinking and what we learn. And given our lengthy dependence, we are at risk of developing thinking patterns that may become ingrained, even seemingly irreversible. If we have adults in our young lives who help us learn to think well, we benefit in a multitude of ways. If we have adults in our young lives whose own thinking is suspect, disordered, or otherwise limited, our thinking will be impaired by what we learn and don’t learn from them. - We all have desire to be babied, but we are adult now. That desire does not become predominate theme of our existence. - Dependency is, at root, a disorder related to thinking - specifically, a resistance to thinking for ourselves. - Left brain is analytical (concrete) . Right brain is intuitive (abstract). Female more abstract. Male more concrete. - The crux of split-brain research has shown that the left side is the analytical brain, with the ability to take wholes and break them up into pieces, while the right side is the intuitive brain with the ability to take pieces and makes wholes out of them. As human beings, we have the ability to learn both of these two primary types of thinking: concrete and abstract. Concrete thinking deals with particulars in their material form. Abstract thinking deals with particulars in general and theoretical terms. - Thinking exercise: The think from left and right brain perspectives. ^4ab804 - Thinking exercise: Think twice from different state of mind ^7924e8 - The ancient Sumerians, I am told, had a basic rule for guiding their thinking not unlike split-brain theory. With regard to any important decisions to be made (usually about whether or not to go to war with the Babylonians), they literally had to think twice. If the first decision had been arrived at when they were drunk, it had to be reconsidered when they were sober. If, when drunk, they said, “Let’s go get those Babylonians,” then later, in the clear, cool light of day, it might not look like such a smart decision. Conversely, if they were cold sober when they decided that it would be strategically clever to beat up the Babylonians, they held off and said, “First let’s drink some wine.” Drunk, they might come to the conclusion that “there’s no need to go to war with them. Hell, we love the Babylonians.” **Simplism and Society** - People take cues from societal institutions to learn how to think. - Various institutions of society, in their failure to teach or demonstrate how to think various institutions of society, in their failure to teach or demonstrate how to think. - One of the lies spoken to us is about human nature, that we are supposed to be happy, fulfilled and comfortable. - _The biggest lie promoted by various of our social institutions—and this in some ways plays into our human nature and our sin of laziness—is that we’re here to be happy all the time. We’re bombarded by business, the media, and the church with the lie that we’re here to be happy, fulfilled, and comfortable. For motives of profit, the lies of materialism and advertising suggest that if we’re not happy, comfortable, and fulfilled, we must be eating the wrong cereal or driving the wrong car. Or that we must not have it right with God. How wicked! The truth is that our finest moments, more often than not, occur precisely when we are uncomfortable, when we’re not feeling happy or fulfilled, when we’re struggling and searching._ - We are lazy because we do not do our thinking. We accept what is told to us. - Related to differentiation, when we do not differentiate, there will be internal conflict. - When we deny ourselves autonomy, it is no wonder we become confused and uncomfortable. But when we use simplistic formulas based on the “normal”—or fashionable—thing to do, internal, if not external chaos is the usual result. - We live in a world of change, yet thinking it was possible not to change, or avoid change, fell in between an illusion and a delusion. - All psychiatric disorders are thinking disorders (So, is there one way of thinking?) - When I was in psychiatric training, schizophrenia was labeled a thinking disorder, or a thought disorder. Since that time, I have come to believe that all psychiatric disorders are thinking disorders. Individuals at the extremes of mental illness, as in some forms of schizophrenia, are clearly the victims of disordered thinking and may be so far out of touch with reality that they cannot function well in day-to-day activities. Yet we have all met narcissists, obsessive-compulsives, and passive-dependent people in our social and work lives. Their mental health may be fragile, but they manage to appear “normal” and get by. The fact, however, is that they, too, are disordered thinkers. Narcissists cannot think about other people. Obsessive-compulsives cannot think about the big picture. Passive-dependent people cannot think for themselves. In every psychiatric condition I have worked with over the years, there was some disorder of thinking involved. Most people who go into therapy are suffering from either a neurosis or character disorder. Among the general population who never go to see a psychotherapist, these conditions are equally prominent and are, again, the result of disordered thinking. They are, at root, illusions of responsibility, and as such, they reflect opposite styles of thinking about and relating to the world and the problems in life. - We all have illusions. Some are good/helpful.. while others are unhelpful, and harmful. (This remind me of wittgenstein idea of concepts, words, language) - Children are a joy to have - Appearance is everything - Must excel in sports. - "Thinking too little is our problem, thinking too much is somebody else's problem" :) We must cultivate our brain, to think critically.. free will. Think for ourselves. Other people don't like that we "think too much" because then they cannot control us anymore -- - This is important insight: Therapeutic Depression - Realisation. That we are at a cross road now. Unless the person renounce the past, he cant move forward? - In my practice as a psychotherapist, I discovered that many people hold tenaciously to the certainty of their childhood beliefs, as if they couldn’t function as adults without this certainty as a security blanket. Only when they hit the gaping void would doubt and uncertainty emerge, and in confronting crisis, these became a saving grace. Frequently, about one or two years into therapy, they would become far more depressed than they were when they first came to me. I called the phenomenon therapeutic depression. At this juncture, patients realized that their old way of thinking was no longer working for them. They had come to see some of their thinking patterns as stupid or maladaptive. But new ways of thinking seemed terrifyingly risky and inherently difficult. They couldn’t go back and couldn’t go forward, and in this “in-betweenness” they became depressed. At such times, they would ask, “Well, why go anyplace? Why should I exert myself? Why should I risk changing my beliefs? Why shouldn’t I just give up and kill myself? Why bother? What’s the point of it all?” For these questions, there are never easy answers. There are no answers in the medical textbooks or books of psychiatry because these are fundamentally existential and spiritual questions. They are questions about meaning in life. And although it was difficult to grapple with, I called this period of depression therapeutic precisely because such spiritual grappling ultimately led to growth for these patients in long-term." Thinking and listening - Thinking and listening need energy and effort, skills. We should teach the young how to think and listen more. Thinking and freedom - Thinking is free. Thinking and feeling are not bad. Public Actions have consequences . Free to think anything. Now the question is, how to think? - To understand paradox ultimately means being able to grasp two contradictory concepts in one’s mind without going crazy. ## Chapter 2: [Consciousness](https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=4wn8KQAAAEAJ&pg=GBS.PA60) - Consciousness, being aware. - Shame and Guilt, from the bible - In other words, the first result of eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is that Adam and Eve become shy or modest because they are now self-conscious . They are aware that they are naked. From this we can also extrapolate that the emotions of guilt and shame are manifestations of consciousness, and although both emotions can be exaggerated to the point of pathology, within limits they are an essential part of our humanity and necessary for our psychological development and functioning. - The more conscious we are, the more pain we experience, but the more freedom we have. Then we can reduce unnecessary suffering (This is quite a buddhist idea, like enlightenment) - Thinking deeply is often more painful than thinking shallowly.... The reality is that painful feelings accompany problem solving, and the process of becoming increasingly conscious is, like life in general, difficult...We will be aware of a broader array of choices in responding to different situations and the daily dilemmas of life... Unfortunately, pain is an inevitable side effect of consciousness. We will also become more aware of the needs, burdens, and sorrows of ourselves and others. We will become more aware of the realities of our mortality and the aging process working in every cell of our bodies. We will become conscious of our own sins and imperfections and, inevitably, more aware of the sins and evils of society. The choice of whether or not to think deeply is, therefore, the choice of whether or not to accept that pain is associated with consciousness. - Author believe that all psychological disorders are not in the unconscious, but in the consciousness, but refusal to face it. - As I wrote in The Road Less Travelled , I believe that all psychological disorders are basically disorders of consciousness. They are not rooted in the unconscious but in a conscious mind that refuses to think and is unwilling to deal with certain issues, bear certain feelings, or tolerate pain. These issues, feelings, or desires are in the unconscious only because a pain-avoiding conscious mind has thrust them there. - Consciousness and Thinking are inextricably locked together. The more i think, the more consciosus.. the more conscious, the more i can think. - thinking and consciousness are inextricably locked together in a parallel relationship. Consciousness is the foundation of all thinking, and thinking is the foundation of all consciousness. Anytime there is a failure in thinking, there is corresponding deficit in a person’s level of consciousness. Thus, all human behavior—the good, the bad, and the indifferent—is determined by the extent, or lack thereof, of the quality of thinking and consciousness involved.