Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Sing, Draw, Dance, Think

Anyone can become a good thinker, I am convinced.

I have read, and I believe, that if you can talk, you can sing. For some of us, it takes a lot of help and training to become a halfway decent singer, but any of us can do it, after some fashion.

An art teacher once told us that if you can write, you can draw. Writing requires that we develop the ability to draw each character of the alphabet well enough to distinguish it from the other letters. We have to draw these letters with enough clarity that they can be read. If we can write, we have already developed some degree of drawing ability.

As a matter of fact, all children draw, even more naturally than they write. They begin drawing before they know anything about reading and writing. It is only after they are art classes where art teachers tell them what they’ve done wrong, that they decide they can’t draw. Anyone who can write can draw, and with training and encouragement, can learn to draw fairly well.

A teacher of choreography told me that anyone who can walk can dance. We can maintain our balance, move our feet in proper sequence, and adjust our pace to walk with some else. Most of us can even learn to march in step with music. As dancers, we probably will never become a public performer nor become known as an artist, but we can move our feet rhythmically and/or move our feet to music.

These are things I have heard said, and that I believe.
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I say: If you ever think at all, you can become a good thinker. Maybe not like Einstein, but effectively. The following repeats what I wrote in a much earlier blog.

If you learn to think considerately–dialectically–then you will become more:

• considerate
• moderate
• appreciative
• aware,
• diplomatic
• honest
• respectful

You will:

• understand others better (including your opposition)
• ask more questions
• read more
• eliminate arrogance
• be less apt to go off half-coked
• make fewer mistakes
• need to make fewer apologies

You will have more:

• patience
• humility
• wonder
• openness
• integrity
• sympathy
• tolerance
• people who respect you
• have more patience

You will be less apt to be blind-sided because you have thought and looked more than one way.

If you are new to this blog, the early posts on this site will help you understand more fully what has been said in this one.

If you are not new, you are aware that I’ve neglected–to my disappointment–this blog. I hope to remedy that, because I have much more I want to say on the subject of dialectical/considerate thinking.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well said.