Mind Transformation 319

319.
V
Banya, Jung, Castaneda “Journey to Ixtaln” (audiobook).
S, s - 2
Thinking about development of thoughts, I’ve come back to the question: What is thought? There is no doubt that writing can be considered as an exercise to work on this development, but what is the thing that is going to be developed? When I use the word idea or concept I usually mean something special like a solution to a problem or a kind of representation of an abstract attitude towards this or that thing. I may say, for instance, that the idea of learning can be described as the process of receiving information about any subject one is going to use for some purposes. I also may say that I have an idea of learning something easier or doing something better or getting something faster etc. When I use the word thought I always have a subject which the thought refers to—I thought about this, I had some thoughts about that and so on. It sounds trivial, but is it actually trivial? How these armies of words may grow and what is the substance of their growth? I mean, are they just words? Many thoughts and ideas are based on some sort of experience; others are logical definitions—but where exactly they come from? If I want to develop my thoughts I need to figure out their nature as deeply as possible. If the quality of my thoughts depends on my experience, I need to seek things that can give me a kind of extraordinary experience. If it rests on the capacity of understanding the language I should pay attention to my language as if it were the only thing I have to take seriously in life. However, if it is both, so that one is not going to become a dry, one-sided thinker or write as a pretty sensible old woman, one knows what to do.

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