Three takeaways:
The piece opens with a reminder of the value of “unanswerable” or philosophical questions to force deep, honest, uncomfortable contemplation– and therefore spur growth.
We often resist deep contemplation because confronting unresolved, complex life questions has been shown to evoke discomfort and dark moods, but research has shown that we should consciously embrace these more difficult or mysterious queries.
A 2012 study asked young adults how often they considered questions such as “Do you ever reflect on your purpose in life?” and “Do you ever think about the human spirit or what happens to life after death?” They found that the people who spent more time on these questions tended to score higher than their peers on a variety of measures defined as spiritual intelligence, critical existential thinking, sense of life’s meaning, curiosity, and well-being.
Anxiety and depression rates have been exploding in the United States, especially among young adults. Brooks argues that this is not because we’re thinking too much about the hard questions of life, but too little. He suggests a three part routine for encouraging oneself to ponder life’s harder, more mysterious questions:
- Schedule your mental workout – like exercise, an analytical meditation practice becomes easier with discipline and repetition. By keeping an ongoing schedule of reflection and thought, during which devices and other distractions are banned, you will quickly see the practice become pleasant- and then indispensable.
- Go for a long walk – Research has shown that walking naturally stimulates creative thinking and facilitates the ability to focus without being distracted. Long walks- again, without devices– can increase one’s power to think deeply.
- Invite boredom – We live in the age of screens and personal devices that make it seem that we are never truly bored. This is not a positive thing. Experiencing boredom is crucial for abstract reasoning and insight, because it stimulates the set of brain regions that becomes active when the outside world does not impinge on our mind’s attention.
By embracing these steps, we put ourselves in a better position to connect with the deeper threads of meaning and foundations of purpose that can so easily become so remote as we go about our busy, distracted days.
From Arthur C. Brooks at The Atlantic:
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