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 Steve Gillman |
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Thinking is done on different levels, and a deep thought doesn't necessarily invalidate or take away the value of an idea that is shallower. Finding a new way to relieve pain can be a wonderful thing, for example, and may be the best solution to a given problem of pain. On the other hand, that is just symptomatic treatment. A true cure is more likely to come from deeper thinking, which in this case might be about the cause of the pain.
The Thousand Mile Hole is a guide to deep thought.
It starts in this way...
In some thick woods, far from the nearest town, in terrain rough enough to hide such things for centuries, a large hole was recently discovered. It was three hundred feet across. The first rocks thrown into it never made a sound from hitting bottom. Others heard about the hole, and scientists eventually came to do some tests. They proved the hole was a thousand miles deep, and maintained the same three-hundred-foot diameter all the way down. Though many people certainly speculated as to the origin, nobody knew how such a uniform and deep hole had formed.
I was wearing a nylon jacket when I hiked out through the woods to see the hole and to possibly write about it. I also wore a small backpack containing a notebook, pens, a small tape recorder, a flashlight, water, snacks, a rain jacket, and few other items. After hours of walking I arrived at the hole late in the morning, and leaned over the edge to peer into the abyss. That's when I slipped and fell.
That is an example of what Albert Einstein called a "thought experiment." It continues with an imaginative exploration of what it might be like to fall for eight hours, knowing you were going to die at the end of the journey (Humans reach terminal velocity at around 125 miles-per-hour, and so it takes eight hours to fall a thousand miles). Following the story is a look at how to do your own thought experiments in order to reach more deeply into the nature of things and to have creative insights.
Other chapters cover additional ways to think more deeply and creatively. If you have ever wanted a whole new outlook on reality, and new ways to see, this is the book for you. I am still a few months from publication, so check back for updates. Once published, an announcement will also be made in my Brainpower Newsletter, which you can sign up for (no charge) at www.IncreaseBrainpower.com.
Other Pages:
About Steve Gillman - A bit of biographical information about myself.
Table of Contents - The chapter list and a short excerpt from the introduction of the book.
Deep Thinking - Quotes Worth Pondering - Favorites and some of my own.
Favorite Quotes (changed monthly):
We should have a great fewer disputes in the world if words were taken for what they are, the signs of our ideas only, and not for things themselves. - John Locke