{My thoughts on a shallow list of things attributed to being a “deep thinker”.}

“You might be a deep thinker if…”

-“you are highly intelligent”
Not typically. Math, memory, and puzzle-solving skills have little correlation with deep thought. The crucial factor of deep thought is integrity.

-“Deep thinkers always leave space for doubt.”
False. There are things we cannot be unsure of, and things we should not be unsure of, just as there are things we cannot be sure of.

-“you love the fact that reading gives you the opportunity to escape the boring reality.”
This is shallow (as least as described). A deep thinker can have interest in, gain insight from, and learn from whatever surroundings in which he finds himself, he understands that they do not constitute all of reality, and he loves reading because it expands these surroundings.

-“You keep your mind open”
It depends on what is meant. Often what people mean by this is the idea that “anything could be true”, similar to doubting everything, which is false.
Something one could say instead is that a deep thinker has the integrity not to defend an idea by hiding it from scrutiny or discussion. This does not mean that he has any obligation to listen to or respond to every challenge that may be brought.

-“Deep thinkers often feel like they don’t belong anywhere and don’t fit in with other human beings.”
It is true: “Can two walk together, except they be agreed?” – Am 3
However: “When a man’s ways please Yahweh, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.” – Pr 16
I have been able to “fit in” even with Baptists and Catholics, though fundamentally divergent from their thinking.

-“hate small talk”
This is a preference, not a sign of deep thought. A deep thinker often recognises the profound roots and implications of small talk.

-“You feel repulsed by popular culture”
The current mainstream English-speaking culture has twisted values, but it is shallow to apply this right judgement as a fundamental concept. A deep thinker is free from cultural prejudice, free from the complete acceptance or rejection of only the system he is immediately surrounded with, and is an appreciative and reasonable judge of all cultures in all times and places.

-“You often find yourself disconnected from reality and lost in thought”
To be deep in thought is not to be lost, much less to be disconnected from reality. It is merely to be disconnected from one’s immediate surroundings (it is shallow to think of one’s immediate surroundings as constituting reality).

-“don’t care about other people’s opinions”
Deep thinkers take responsibility for their own conclusions, and so value others’ opinions more than those who blindly follow others’ opinions without considering or judging their value at all. It seems to shallow people that deep thinkers don’t care, because shallow people make agreement and disagreement primarily about themselves and their own feelings; they put themselves before truth.

#SabbathPosts 2023/09/16

Some people stress that we must believe the Devil is real and is our dangerous enemy; they say that in order to fight well we must recognise the enemy.

And sometimes they think to stress this point by saying that evil people are not our enemy – this is the opposite of recognising the enemy: Christ said to evil men, “ye are of your father the Devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do” Jn 8. Evil men are absolutely our enemy, doing the lusts of the Devil on the earth.

If we do not recognise this enemy, then we do not recognise our enemy the Devil, or any enemy.

“Beware of men” Mt 10

Some might object that we shouldn’t see some group of people as our enemy, but this of course does not come from Scripture. Rather, we must group people by morality, and this must trump any other grouping. Grouping by morality must trump grouping by skin colour, for example: if a person is good, we must be friends, regardless of skin colour: if a person is evil, he must be our enemy, regardless of skin colour.

#SabbathPosts 2023/09/09

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.” – Asian Proverb

I have a temptation to be less likely to do something the longer it has been since it should have been done. This is probably true of most who deal with putting things off: like with an addiction, like with alcohol: you may be able to resist it for years, but a small drink makes it far more likely to take another drink, and a larger drink, and so on, even though with each drink it becomes that much more important not to take another drink.

So with putting something off which should not be – it is easiest to resist the temptation, and do it immediately, right when it becomes necessary to do. But once it is put off a little, it is harder to do it, though it becomes more important to do it.

The difference from alcohol is that alcohol is relatively simple: you never do it: “look not upon” it, as Solomon says. However, whenever you do anything, you are putting off doing, or never doing, everything else you could be doing. You can only do one thing at a time, so only one thing gets done right away, and the rest is put off for some amount of time.
And it also isn’t as simple as “do the most important things until they are done” either: there is an infinite number of things that are more important than eating, but you still need to eat, neither is it wrong to take the time to have a really good meal. There are various reasons, more specific than bare importance, that determine which things are done first or given more time.

One thing is certain – whatever you do must be done deliberately, with self-control and prudence (which once again always rules out alcohol, of course).

#SabbathPosts 2023/09/02