Thinking Skills

 Thinking Skills Workshop.

This blog is based on the 2 day workshop held at our Department of English. Professor Milan Pandya was the guest lecturer who conducted this wonderful workshop on thinking skills. What? why? how? when? were some of the objectives of this workshop. As the title itself suggests this workshop was based on thinking activities that helped us in rationalizing our thoughts and seeing through the objectives of life. Our day-to-day life reflects the thinking abilities we possess and how we apply logic to our lives. At first, it is very complicated to understand what is it and how it works, but once we develop the insight, it goes smooth like butter. 

 Critical Thinking

"If something is true, what else has to be true?" - Milan Pandya

 This statement is more of a complicated one but, to identify the truth and logic of a particular argument or subject, applying this formula makes it much easier. Whenever we want to check anything, simple application of it can list out the fakeness of the rumor. We see such spread of news on social media apps like whatsapp, facebook, instagram, twitter where people spread rumors on the name news. Many of the television advertisements also try to play with our mindsets in order to market their products. Famous actors and celebrities endorse brands that they might never use and portray their happiness for petty discounts aswell. To stay aware of such catchy ads is tough but at a point we all may realise that whatever is displayed is much different than the actual reality. Such things are not just limited to ads but also has it's widespread among daily soaps and movies all over the world.

Here , the image depicts how a man is trying to help her wife drape a saree as her arm is broken. But also we cannot ignore the fact that she has put on her make up and jewellery and can do everything but make pleats in the saree. If we look upon it critically,only then we can judge this and chalk out the abusrd logic that they have applied here and is able to attract audience for their serial.

We also need to know what is possible and plausible. There is a very thin line between these words and also tough to differentiate. We can develop understanding about these words by simple knowing the meaning. Plausible is something that can be used to make a valid point while possible means something can be true but not reasonable enough to have proper faith. For example:

Earth is a flat plate: Possible

Earth is hemispherical in shape: Plausible. 

It is plausible because we have a prominent evidence of it being more reasonable than the other theories in existence.

Just because someone said something doesn't make it true. 

These things can only be developed when one has critical thinking capabilities. The definition goes like "Thinking about thinking in order to improve thinking" - Milan Pandya 

It's not always critical thinking but at times creative and logical thinking as well. Positive and negative thoughts are the two sides of this coin named thinking. It's upon you and your perspective how you look upon things in life and how you deal with them defines the type of person you are. The probability of your peers and your family affecting your mental health are much higher than we thought of it to be. If one lives in a happy milieu it's comparatively easy for that person to be happy and satisfied while distress can lead to negativity and bad mental health. Hence, it's very important to choose your circle carefully.

Self doubts and overthinking: 

As humans we all have the tendency to seek validations from people which is worthless as you know your life story they don't. And one can understand certain things only by passing through them and not merely hearing about them. Lowering the expectations and stopping yourself to seek validations from the society will bring you utmost mental peace. Such people are generally detached from others and they take time and their space to get attached, it also helps them in understanding themselves better which is very essential. Many a times detached or introvert people are looked upon as socially inactive, but it's not the case always they just need their time to get along with people. Human psychology is the only science without a proper defination as each mind and perspectives vary from person to person. 

It is also the words that play a significant role in building the environment around us. Words can be more lethal than weapons and hence should be carefully used. Words can harm and heal, depends on the vocational skills of a person.

Creative Thinking : 

Creativity is always about something that is out of the box or presented in a way that no one else could have thought of it to be. Creativity can never come from a chewed old idea or improvisation of that particular idea. It's always about doing something astonishing that no one else could have imagined that. Creativity is directly proportional to imaginative skills of an individual. One such example of creativity is of box stories/ nesting stories that is present in 1001 Arabian Nights where a girl keeps on postponing her death sentence by weaving such stories that one cannot kill her until the climax. This creativity almost gave us a new genre of literature. All the writers have developed their creativity in a manner that it helps them hook people to their stories and novels. 

Two main factors that makes something creative:

1. It should add value 

2. It should be new and updated.

We see many people getting really impatient about creativity but it's the forte of people who are patient. 

Excess of anything is poison hence over analysis and over thinking of something can be disastrous and human mind has the power to picture things that do not exist on the basis of how one thinks and perceives the world to be.

Thought experiment:

Thought experiment is a mental exercise given to us and it comes with it's own rules and regulations and after fitting yourself into it you have to make choices. This is a mental exercise to rationalize what and why we think and also it gives us an insight about ourselves and the choices we make reflects the value we have. 

In this experiment we were given three almost same yet distinctive choices to make which included accessing the level, pushing someone and shooting someone. Each of the experiment would question your thinking capabilities and the best part about such experiments is there is nothing right or wrong about it, it reflects the psyche and helps one understand themselves better and how with time things and choices change for us. These experiments enhance our mental abilities and gives us a better insight . These experiments are extremely essential for rationalizing and conditioning of our minds.

In this modernizing world it is quite important to make your mind your slave and you ought to be the master, if the opposite happens it can be very dangerous.