Intuitve Thinking and Brain Silence

 "The sounds of silence are a dim recollection now, like mystery, privacy and paying attention to one thing — or one person — at a time.
As far back as half-a-century ago, the Swiss philosopher Max Picard warned: 'Nothing has changed the nature of man so much as the loss of silence, once as natural as the sky and air.' " A quote from Maureen Dowd.

If you've read the previous posts* about the advantages of intuitive thinking, you understand that a "quiet, resting mind" is a necessity for  intuitive, unconscious, problem-solving activity. Hard to find that time and place. I'm beginning to see why I never was very good at that type of thinking, and relied on rational step by step problem solving. I never had a quiet, rested mind and in fact saw it as a lax, lazy mind that wasn't doing it's job. For me, thinking, analyzing, interpreting and activity, doing, going was the way to go. Maybe that's OK or unavoidable for certain stages of life or weeks or months such as holiday time.

With all the electronics we use minute by minute, even if they don't make noise, one is always connected, looking out, not in, listening, hearing, being stimulated from outside, having little time for the inner mind. The less frequently I check in with twitter, e-mail, Facebook, the better I feel.

Meditation insists on quiet time. It took me years to start meditating on a regular basis, but the benefits are huge. Five minutes of meditating time are worth 30 minutes of active brain time for me. Meditation is equal to a 30 minute alone run, both of which engage the brain in solitude.  Just a wild estimate, but I'm certainly calmer and seem to experience many more Aha moments!  Try it a tiny bit at a time and see what happens. Just sit by yourself in a room with your eyes open or closed and empty your mind for 5 minutes. Can you do it? It's not easy getting started.

*http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=5630711609871539058&postID=1076726261671923464