Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

An interesting dilemma has arisen out of my learning and growing in these last few years.

I noted that I gave considerable attention to getting knowledge over this period. I read some books, essays, and articles and I listened to insightful people. Thankfully, as a result of it, I could feel myself growing, and the mental transformation was palpable.

However, I had no way to tell whether I was actually becoming more effective as a person. My goal from the beginning was to become a useful person. I have seen useless intellectuals, and I do not wish it upon anyone. I believe that the purpose of knowledge is to make me effective - shedding away my hubris and making my talents effective.

It was, therefore, not enough that I was filling my brain with new information, I had to make sure that I was actually becoming better and effective.

The easiest thing to do is to lie to oneself. I have tended to overestimate my own abilities and clarity of mind in the past. There is no dearer error than that.

I cannot rely on my own mind to tell me that I am right or wrong. My ego is too invested to let me know when I am wrong. I need a pair of fair scales on which I could assess the true weight of my convictions; a mirror to look into and see my own hubris. Then I can stand before it and ask, like the Evil Queen does in Snow White. ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the smartest of them all?’

And the mirror will probably whisper back, ‘Not you, boy!’

Writing is that mirror.

I learnt that writing down my thoughts was the surest way to put them before a mirror and see them for what they are truly worth. It is easy to fool myself in my mind. However, the moment I begin writing down my thoughts, the holes in my thinking become obvious.

The truest test of an idea is writing it down as clearly and honestly as I can. And then reading it through. Sometimes I am so embarrassed of what comes out of this process that I cannot read past the first couple of sentences I have written.

My thoughts and ideas become naked once they hit the paper (or the keyboard). Many of my ideas can be strangled to death by simply writing them down. But that’s a good thing, because I get to keep only those thoughts and ideas that pass the test.

One thing I love about this process is that it forces me to think.

It is astounding how shallow, passive, and wrong most of our thinking is. The human brain is lazy. But it is also amazingly capable of novelty. Serious, intentional writing places a demand on the mind to take thinking as serious work.

Writing a long essay about an idea or thought can reveal blind-spots and opportunities that I could be missing. It turns my prized ideas upside and down like a piece of steak on a grill, testing each angle of the thought. Then it wrings it from the inside out, laying bare every error and lie that might be there. In the end, it comes out strong, tested and glistening, a reliable tool for making me effective.

More often than not, however, I write simply to get information out of my mind. I find facts and thoughts to be intruding when they are floating around in my mind. Jotting them down frees up mental space.

In fact, writing a thought down is like putting a seed in the soil to allow it to begin growing into a fully-fledged idea. Therefore, frequently taking short notes on my phone allows me to not only clear my mind but also plant little idea-seeds which will possibly become tomorrow’s big ideas.

Externalize information by writing. Allow the mind space to think. We evolved for millions of years without the pressure to store numbers, theories, ideas, and millions of abstractions in our brains. The human brain did not evolve with our modern civilized lives … in mind.

Because as Plutarch says, the mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be ignited.