Are thoughts useful or harmful?

 

ARE THOUGHTS USEFUL OR HARMFUL?

ARE THOUGHTS USEFUL OR HARMFUL?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Are thoughts useful or harmful?

Ann Abayeva

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hundreds of thoughts visit us during the day. And we never muse where they are from. So let’s catch one more thought and talk about its nature. What are thoughts? It is an action of mind. Thought is a thing that makes us human and defines from the animals. René Descartes considered thinking as a determination of existence. The process of thinking itself is neutral. It is like a knife – cannot be good or bad, it depends on the use. (For it can be used at home, and at the same time it can be used for damage.) Of course, we can think about sacred or profane, but the flow of thought is an abstract concept and assumes no harm or use. We can judge whether it’s good or bad only when thought turns into an action.

There are extremes, so-called obsessions, in which thoughts take an intrusive nature and seize a man. Such thoughts are closely related with emotions, associations, feelings, fantasies and also cannot be categorized as useful or harmful. A person’s ability to distinguish good or bad produce the chain of reasoning that leads to certain conclusions. Basing on these findings, which are in turn based on man’s benefits and conscience, he accepts or rejects a particular thought. There are many examples in fiction, where we can see such phenomenon, as a control of thoughts. In Orwell’s ‘1984’ we find such notions as “crimethought”, “selfstop” and “doublethought”. All of them aimed at finding and identifying harm in the process of thinking. According to that dystopian novel, when a citizen realized his thought as harmful, he should immediately start to think in the other direction, or use so called “selfstop”. Surely, it is just a fiction and in the everyday life everything is somewhat simpler. But before we let an obsession to take a root, we have to classify it by a number of points. For example, is it creative and constructive, or ruinous and destructive? What advantages or disadvantages will it bring? And in the end, is it useful or harmful?

From every thought we can make anything we want, because thought is like dough. As Walter said ‘Thinking is like a fountain. Once it gets going at a certain pressure, well, it is almost impossible to turn it off.’ The name of this philosopher is closely related with the term ‘freethought’. It is a philosophical viewpoint, which intends, that positions about truth should be based on logic. Every day of our life we obtain and process huge amount of information from different sources. Certain dogmas are dictated by the church. Some facts we get via Internet or television, from the mass media and from the government. But no matter where you get the information and what is the source of a particular thought, you shouldn’t unquestioningly accept it for truth, and therefore make a conclusion that it is useful. Talking about sources of the information, society should be mentioned. Mainly stereotypes, imposed by society are that very thoughts, that we consider normal. But these exact things, which we consider familiar, could be harmful. Something, that hasn’t been called into a question and tested by logic could damage.

Thought has a huge constructive power. To achieve success in any endeavor, you must drop all destructive thoughts and tune into constructive and creative thinking. The power of thought can be raised to the boundless heights. All reflex thinking must be replaced with awareness. If the power of thought is realized, the body will gladly submit to it. The body responds to any thoughts – automatic and conscious. If the same idea is repeated regularly, the body will necessarily follow. The body does not have its will - it is completely subordinated to the thoughts. So thinking, aimed at achievements of the result, is, without doubts, useful. And thoughts, which go in the opposite direction, are harmful.

As it was mentioned, thought is neutral. And thought is a motor of an act. Thoughts soar in the space and occur automatically in our head. At the time of appearing they still abstract, devoid of positive or negative colour. And only when we have a final result (and the result of the thought is usually not neutral or abstract) we can judge what thought has been. There’s always such link as though – analysis – concept idea – objectification – result. And this last point, the result, is the indicator of the first one – the thought. Only by the result we can say, was the thought useful, or harmful.

 

 

 

"I am thinking, therefore I exist" is a philosophical proposition by René Descartes. 

Orwell, G. (1949) 1984