Abstractness

SO!

It's not even 10am, and I'm already feeling fantastic. I feel like I'm in such a creative mood. I'm thinking about all these different things, I don't know where to begin...

Lets begin with the concept of abstractness... When I say abstractness, I mean the concept of taking familiar things, and thinking about them in new ways. At the simplest level, I can show you an example of this by taking two random words and putting them together.

Random word #1: Cantaloupe

Random word #2: Chameleon.

Together they make: Cantaloupe Chameleon.

These are two very different things, but somehow when you think about it, your mind tries to relate the two...maybe the rough texture of a cantaloupe with a chameleon's skin... or the similiar coloring. Anyhow, I just did this exercise to prove to you the concept of abstractness. The concept of a Cantaloupe Chameleon is abstract, you put two familiar things together, and as a result, thought of them in a new way.

Anyways, it's this magical concept of abstractness, I think, which makes us human. It's a way of thought that other animals aren't capable of. Other animals sleep, yawn, have sex, eat, feel pain, have families, etc. just like us. But they're incapable of having abstract thoughts.

I think people wildly underestimate the power of abstract thoughts as well. Abstractness gives us the power to do anything. By thinking of things in weird and new ways, a world of possibility opens up to us. Why do you think some of the most renown pieces of art/music and some of the most amazing technology are thought up by people who are on drugs, or get their inspiration from dreams they had the night before? It's because dreams (which most people know can be extremely random) and drugs open up a world which is free from the constraints of our normal thinking...it opens up abstractness. But it's not like these are the only two ways of achieving abstract thought. We can do it in our daily lives...It's all about letting our mind wander, opening up our imagination, thinking about random things that no one in their right mind would normally think about. By thinking about these things, we make connections, realizations, that most people don't normally think about.

I think abstractness, (which I'm going to define again, as thinking about familiar things in new/strange ways), can help us a lot in our daily life as well. Say you're writing a paper... Instead of focusing on "I have to get 5 pages written" the entire time while writing it... Try focusing instead on all the interesting thoughts you have about the topic. Think about it in your head, and use your keyboard to transcribe these thoughts down...just keep thinking about it more and more, and before long you'll have 5 pages...20 pages, it's not that hard to do if you simply change your way of thinking. Afterwards of course, you'll have to go back and edit/re-organize the thoughts you wrote down, but I guarantee you your paper will be 100x more interesting, than it would have been if you were simply trying to reach the page requirement.

There's so many things we can think about in new ways, I think abstractness is the #1 path to leading a happy life. We get too caught up in thinking like everybody else, and don't realize the beauty of thinking for ourselves. For example, say something bad has happened to you. Stop and think. What makes this thing "bad"? Could it really be "good"? If you think hard enough, you could probably find a way to make it a "good" thing. I think it's important to think about things like this. You can apply it to an infinite amount of situations...

Anyhow, I should probably get back to writing my paper, I just wanted to get my thoughts down somewhere.