Is thinking a good idea?

This is not one of those disputations with which medieval seminarians whiled the centuries before Snapchat. Imagine having an intellect and no video! Imagine thinking for fun! This inquiry is urgent, given the screwed-up state of our world. As dog-pal Henry stresses tirelessly (some might say tiresomely): if humans are so smart, how come dogs are happier?

Henry’s brief against thinking isn’t nugatory (or brief). Thinking produces

· Wars

· Mass weaponry

· Planet spoliation

· Income inequality

· Mendacity (that’s a big one)

· Psychosis

· Boredom

· Daily missives

· The Nameless One

His list is longer – to the verge of longueur – but let’s not linger.

My rebuttal (In defensionem cogitandi), citing Shakespeare, Mozart, and Jesus as evidence in favor, falls short. At Jesus especially, Henry rolls his eyes: “If humans didn’t think, they wouldn’t need Jesus!” Point taken.

But, I return to the fray, can anything so fun be bad for you?

I concede, in the ten thousand or so years since humans, to feed ourselves, quit hunting for cultivation, commencing civilization, the results of thinking have been mixed. I further concede that thinking, while intermittently pleasant, leads more often to despair than happiness. Henry is happier than I, no two ways about it. Nor is it easy to refute the claim that humanity evinces God’s malevolence toward his creation, not His favor. True, thinking gave humans mastery of earth, but how well has that worked out?

Logic may conclude thinking’s noxious. So to hell with logic, I’ll go with my gut.

What would life be without thinking! Tedious. Pointless, A trek to nowhere – why bother? Plus, we’d have fewer anodynes to ease our way. (No streamed cop series? No opera? No oxycodone? Help!)

Thinking, then, is a sensual, selfish satisfaction, like my daily Reese’s Piece (one only, snack size). I enjoy playing with ideas. The sport gains me friends – whoever’s reading this now. It incalculably widens my world. Relationships deepen beyond sniffing anuses. The composition of these paragraphs is a hoot and a holler. Think – without thinking – no Bach!

I also believe (we’re getting mystical here) in thinking’s potential for rescuing mankind from the wreckage occasioned by thinking. Individuals sometimes come to their senses – why not our species? Mightn’t we convince our companions in existence, one by one, that truth, justice, grace, decency, beauty, kindness, fairness are swell ideas, and thus slow our slide to Armageddon?

Just now, any justification for such hope is sparse. The headlines suggest we the people are whooshing in the wrong direction. Our supposed leaders lack either the courage or confidence to do what’s right. A wrecking ball is demolishing our ideals as well as our house. I often envy Henry’s inattention to the horrors du jour.

Yet we cannot give up, can we? Thinking leads ineluctably to that conclusion. Gloom is a bad idea, certain to hasten our demise. None of us can foresee the fate of our nation, species, planet, but it’s vividly evident what we must do to avert the worst. We must not give up – either the struggle or our belief we might prevail. Where there’s life, to coin a phrase, there’s hope, and that hope must animate and give us joy in our darkest hour!

How’s that for rhetoric? Over-the-top, granted, but I too am of the congregation, desperate to be rescued from despair. Every day I must pump myself up, shake off the blues and blahs, and get to work, doing what little I can in our common cause. I rebuke the gloom-sayers who advocate acquiescence. We must never quit hoping – never, never.

That is what I think.