APPENDIX C - Original Thought

The goal of becoming alpha to ourselves, to be one’s own mythic source is dependent on our having the ability to engage in original thought, to have new ideas. Most of us were not brought up to have original thoughts and we didn’t learn how in school, either. So what do we do? We learn how to have original thoughts and how to get out of our own way when they happen.

New ideas sometimes show up in our minds unannounced and fully developed, exactly what we want. More often we have to seek them out and put them together once we find them so we can use them to get to the ideas we are after.

Questions
What can we do to get new ideas? One way is to ask questions and be open to answers. When we ask questions we put ourselves into a story in which we will take action to try to get an answer. The actions we take may or may not be sufficient to overcome the obstacles between us and our answer. Different actions lead to different obstacles on our way to the answer. The actions we choose on the basis of the question, the situation at hand, and our moral package. We have some power over all three.

The question is a good place to start. How we state the question determines what kind of answer we get. Some questions and answers are nonverbal – do something new and find out the consequences. What is it like to travel by a different route? Try it and you will see. Questions that we carefully consider we usually state in words. A productive question will be specific. What is it, precisely, that we want to know? Sometimes we don’t know exactly what we want to know, so we start with the best question we can and let actions towards its answer reveal new questions that guide us to new thoughts.

Beware of assumptions that cut off productive areas of exploration. Despite our awareness, concept-limiting words are easy to fall prey to. We didn’t get lightning rods until we stopped asking who causes lightning and started asking what causes lightning. When wording the question, how much you don’t know is as important as how much you know. A good question comes from what you know, not what you assume.

Observation
Central to your separating the known from the unknown is the ability to observe. By observation I don’t mean a casual glance. Observation is perceiving, by any means possible, what is there, not what you think is there, what you expect to be there, what someone told you would be there, what you fear is there, or what should be there, but simply what is there.

This sounds easy, but often is not. We normally see what our myth needs and take little notice of the rest. We perceive a reality prejudiced towards the confirmation and progression of our myth. Skillful observation requires us to see it all, regardless of mythic relevance. Having an expansive, flexible myth makes observation easier as does having plenty of time and feeling relaxed and not threatened.

Learn how to observe without interpreting. Let what you see be just what you see, not what you think it must be or what it symbolizes to you. Interpretation is a key entry point of limiting assumptions that cut us off from new ideas by making everything an extension of our present moral package and past experiences.

Can you put your moral package on hold and let your perceptions be just that, or do you have to immediately make sense out of them, turning the new into the familiar?

Moving Forward
After you have observed, use what you have learned to restate your question. “So what we really want to know is _____.” In the light of the new question, observe the situation again until the obstacles between you and your answer start to reveal themselves. Each obstacle raises a question. “That’s fine, but first what do we do about this problem?” How will answering that question help you on the journey to your answer? There are multiple paths to any destination; you have some choice as to which obstacles you face. Choosing the optimum route is not always easy, but experience and wisdom smooth the way. Pick a path that looks likely with obstacles that you can cope with, hopefully without spending too much time and effort and other resources.

Do not give up too soon. A good question is a worthy opponent. Wrestle with it and make it talk. Even if you do not get a final answer, you will make progress. Sometimes progress is enough for a while. You may need to allow time for your myth to catch up with what you have learned. Often you will be smarter later.

Confidence
You must believe in yourself, in your ability to have original thought that is true, productive and worthwhile. There will be times when you are up against an obstacle you don’t know how to deal with. It is easy to give up before you figure out how to overcome it and move ahead. Remember that every other person who ever had a new idea was just a person, just a human being like you. They did it and so can you. Also remember that most of them worked pretty hard at it; you need to be willing to do so, too.

Doubt
You need to be able to doubt, not to the point of cynicism about the existence of truth, but enough to have the nerve to question the standard answer, the group myth answer, which is nearly always incomplete and often wrong. Most of us are afraid to doubt the standard answer, for then we place ourselves apart from that part of the group myth and give up on accepting the group myth whole, on faith. We get a little closer to abandonment.

If we doubt the standard answer and do not yet have one of our own, what do we do with the question, just let it hang there, unanswered? Yes, that is a good strategy. It is called suspended judgment. We realize we do not yet have enough information to have a good answer to the question and we will not settle for a lesser answer. We don’t have to make up our minds yet. What information we have we put on hold. For now there is no moral demonstration. We wait until we have learned more instead of immediately jumping to conclusions.

Some people can’t stand to wait. They feel they have to have answers to important questions. To say “I don’t know” to a question like “what happens to us after we die” is very difficult for them. A standard answer in line with the cultural myth gives relief and is easy to believe because so many others accept it, but it closes possibilities for original thought.

What if the standard answer is right? It often is. If we do a lot of original thought and end up with the answer our parents or the books or some other alpha figure had for us, isn’t that a lot of wasted mental effort? Why waste time reinventing the wheel?

Reinventing the Wheel
The time is not wasted. There are reasons one should not fear reinventing the wheel. If you go back to the beginning of the problem and think it all the way through to the end, you will have a much better understanding of wheels than you ever had before. Furthermore, by independently thinking through the problem, you are apt to come up with a wheel that is in some way unlike any other. Wheels are so useful that any new kind you invent will probably be well worth the effort. A new kind of wheel could take us somewhere we couldn’t go before.

Do not fear tackling questions that have been worked on by others. You bring your mind, your experience, your myth to the challenge. No two answers are quite the same. Millions of people have wondered “Why are we the way we are?” You have been reading my answer to that question. Other people have had different ideas. Together we build a better and more complete answer.

You can get answers, new answers no one else has ever thought of before. No one knows everything. Trust your own truth and your own experience. Your experience is firsthand. Books and quotes are secondhand. Information is always lost and distorted in transmission from one person to another. That is not to say one cannot learn from the thoughts and experiences of others; one certainly can. But you really don’t know how until you have done it yourself. Your first time at any activity was full of learning. The essentially nonverbal nature of experience is hard to communicate.

Ask the Guru
You know more than you think you do. You have a lot of ideas lurking in your subconscious that don’t fit your normal roles so you are never quite aware of this knowledge. Many of the ideas you repress because you do not feel alpha enough to express them. Here is a game you can play with your friends that will put you into a more alpha role and will have you saying things you didn’t know you knew.

The game is Ask the Guru. Six to twelve players make a good game. One player is chosen as the guru. Wrap him in a sheet so he looks the part. The other players are his devotees who sit in a group facing the guru. The game is enhanced if the guru can sit on something a bit taller than everyone else. The increased elevation will give him more of an air of dominance. If the crowd is sitting on the ground, have the guru sit on a box. If they are in chairs, let him sit on a table.

The game is played by individual members of the audience asking the guru thoughtful questions. The guru gives the best answer he can. He then takes the next question. After about six questions, the guru chooses his successor and joins the audience. The new guru dons the sheet upon the platform and answers another six questions from the audience. This goes on until everyone has had a turn as guru.

The game sounds simple but it works. The relationship of the guru to the audience, the height differential, and the magic of costume combine to put the guru into an alpha role. Any other theatric effects should help the game. You might try candles and incense, draping the guru’s platform, subdued lighting, soft appropriate background music, flowers or other props or anything you can think of that might heighten the effect.

If the players take the game seriously, you will be amazed at the quality of answers you get. When you are guru, you will probably hear yourself saying original thoughts.

You can be that smart all the time if you just learn how to get out of your own way. The game helps you do that so you can see the extent of your mental capability.

Getting Started
If you have always looked outside yourself for answers, turning to the common knowledge, the experts, the authorities, you may have difficulty creating new ideas from within. You will need to learn how. Start with small creativity. Examine the details of your daily routine. How you handle most of them is probably very conventional. You do them the same way everyone else does, because that is how they are done. Don’t settle for that. Is there a better way to get dressed in the morning? Think about it. See what you can come up with, and not just getting dressed. Rethink all those little habitual actions that maintain your life.

Why? Why sweat the small stuff? The reason is to connect with your internal alpha source. Is this the only way to do it? No, but it is one way and something anyone can do. The point is not to remake your lifestyle but to better see the group myth, the common knowledge for what it is and to practice moving beyond its limitations and overcoming the fear of doing so. If you want to have original thought, you will have to step outside the existing group myth.

You must also make space for new ideas in your individual myth. Asking What If suggests the existence of morals outside your present moral package, that all truth is not already within the bounds of your myth. Be open to new ideas or you probably won’t have any.

You will also have more difficulty with original thought if you feel hurried, stressed, or threatened. Try to live with slack in your schedule so your mind has time and space to explore new territory. Not all your mental wanderings will be immediately productive, so you need to be tolerant of the path your thoughts take. Feeling stressed and threatened are both products of being afraid. Fear causes us to defensively contract our muscles and as they tighten up so do our minds. Develop in yourself a calm center where you can relax and have the mythic slack to take a chance on a new idea. Noise also makes us tense; quiet surroundings are better for thought. Light exercise also helps us loosen up. Go for a walk. The rhythm of walking and the flow of the scenery will help you create ideas.

Positive Discussion Group
Another way to create new ideas is through talking with others. Normal conversation can work, but there are ways to increase the potential for original thought. A format that works well to encourage original thinking is the Positive Discussion Group. The aim is to increase mental creativity and decrease alpha jockeying and group myth enforcement. I have had good results with between two and about eight participants. If you have more people, form more groups. The group takes a question and discusses it, coming up with and developing a variety of answers. What makes the group a positive discussion group is adherence to four rules.

First, support and build on the truth in what the other person says. Don’t pick on where it is wrong; nurture and develop what is right. Don’t argue, correct, contradict, or interrupt other people. Hear what the other people are saying and respect that they are trying to speak truth. This rule is the most important. We all have new ideas within us that are of merit, but are not well formed. We are on to something, but not there yet. If we put such an idea out into a group, the idea is not in a form that can be defended. We feel like it’s right, or could be right, but we don’t have a snappy defense for it. If someone else chews it up at that point, we are helpless, but if he helps us build on our idea, we can move forward. Rule number one is to protect these new ideas so they can be developed. As we express such an idea, we are forced to make decisions, which words to use, that make us figure out just what we do think about this concept. We learn about the idea by saying it out loud. You have heard people say that you never learn anything while you are talking, only while listening. Those people are wrong. Talking is a great way to generate new ideas. People who say otherwise are mostly would-be alphas who want you to listen while they talk, which brings up rule number two.

Rule number two is keep it brief. Make one point as reasonably quickly as you can and let others respond. You will get another chance to talk soon. No one likes someone else to hog the floor, including you. Besides, speaking at length is often a dominance move rather than a real need to communicate.

Rule number three is yield to people who have not spoken as much as you. We want to hear from the introverts, not just the loudmouths. This way everybody gets to speak about the same amount of time.

Rule four is, as much as possible, think, don’t quote. We are here to think, not to parrot other sources. Now and then prior information needs to be added to the discussion, but we want to hear your truth, not someone else’s. Also, quotes from big alphas are often used for dominance moves or alpha-by-association implications. If you haven’t got an idea of your own, keep still. Someone else does.

I have found in leading positive discussion groups that in a casual setting about an hour per question works well. More focused groups may spend longer on a particular question.
At the beginning of the discussion, I would state the rules to the group. The rules were followed well, but when one was broken, it nearly always worked if I spoke next, following the rules, and put the discussion back on track, without interrupting the positive air of the group in order to correct the offender.

The positive discussion group makes a safe place to build skills in original thought, a place where we can learn to notice a germ of an idea and bring forth its potential.

What Stops Us
Original thought is fun, exciting, and fairly easy. Why is it so rare? Some people have no idea how to do it, but most of us are stopped by fear. What is there to be afraid of? Plenty.

We fear failure. What if we try to think up something new and can’t? Our self esteem, our image of ourselves as alpha, takes a hit. The standard thoughts offer us a tested solution to our problems; new ideas are risky. New ideas can also be wrong. We fear being in error in our thoughts and do not want to pay the price of the failures resulting from actions based on those thoughts. We like to play it safe.

We also avoid being considered weird by other members of the group. Stating and acting on ideas outside the group myth puts you in line to either be alpha or rejected, the latter being the most likely. People who have committed to the group myth will use various corrective social forces to bring you back within the fold. They do this not for your benefit, but to ease their own anxiety.

Most of us don’t like to think of ourselves as weird, either. We have standards we try to live by that tell us what kind of person we should be, standards based on group myth ideals we have absorbed starting in childhood. As we become better at original thought and become more of our own alpha, more the source for our own myth, we move away from group myth standards as we develop our own.

The Lure of Quotes
Most of us believe a more secure track to an upward alpha movement than original thought is to quote recognized authority. We feel alpha enhanced when we utter the golden words of someone who made it to the top. They can’t attack you without rejecting an alpha much larger than themselves. We like to quote people whose ideas underpin the group myth, for then anyone who attacks us places himself outside the group myth and we are safe. However, no original thought is happening as we lob quotes at each other.

Quotes are safe and they allow us the fantasy that we are as smart and alpha as who we parrot. A quote becomes larger than life, no longer just one man’s statement, but an absolute truth because Shakespeare or Lincoln said it. If it’s a famous quote, we think it can’t be wrong. We become dazzled by the force of the words and their alpha power. The quote runs on its own momentum.

Quotes can be useful when they are a particularly effective way of stating some idea or information. Beyond that, any word you use but did not invent is a form of quote. The idea here is to avoid letting the quote be the end of the discussion. Don’t let quotes be the limits of your thoughts.

We forget that Shakespeare and Lincoln were just a couple of men trying to make it, not unlike yourself. They both were intelligent and worked hard, but they were not qualitatively higher beings than you. The culture wants you to believe they were, so their source status for the group myth will not be questioned but remain stable. The group says that the founders of its myth were so much greater than you that any ideas you may have will be bush league so don’t even try. What the group myth is doing is protecting itself. If all the group members become mythic sources, they might drift away from the group myth and cause the group to fall apart.

Most groups have nothing to fear. People like to have in their myths alphas much more omniscient than themselves. The myth feels more powerful and infallible that way.

Taking Charge
If you want a life of original thought, you need to grow up and face the truth on your own. Mommy and Daddy are just two more people. They don’t have all the answers any more than you do. When you become alpha within yourself, the main source for your myth, you will see other alphas for who they are. You will probably respect them but you will no longer worship them.

When you become a source, other people will see you as alpha. They are mythically starving and they need you. You will be asked “Where do you get your ideas?”, by which they mean “Who or what is the alpha whose ideas you are quoting or adapting?” They mean no harm, even though the question carries the insulting assumption that you are not capable of original thought. When I am asked where I get my ideas, I give the most truthful answer I can, which is “At home, mostly”, which is not what they want to hear. Beyond that, I suppose I could explain the process of original thought, but if you have read this far, you can see it is not a quick and easy answer.

What If Everyone Did It?
What would the world be like if everyone thought for himself? Don’t worry, it’s not going to happen. You can do it if you want, but most people don’t want to be bothered. They don’t think they can do it successfully and they are afraid to try. They just want their place in the herd. But it is still a good question. If people were the source of most of their own myth, would they have enough common mythic ground with others to be able to relate to strangers? I think they would, because we need a variety of people to play roles in our myth. Hopefully they could agree on enough points to avoid chronic feuding. If people could generate sufficient mythic material internally, mythic starvation would be eliminated, so people would be less dazzled by alphas. The alpha game would then be less rewarding, which would help keep the peace. Progress would happen faster with an increased supply of new ideas although it might be hindered by people with more disparate myths being more reluctant to work together. The whole structure of society would be different, just exactly how, I am not sure. But it is fun to think about.

Whether or not other people practice original thought, you can if you choose to do so and work at it. New ideas may come slowly and with difficulty at first, but with time your skill will increase and you will be able to depend on your own mental creativity.