A few days earlier,
I had spent far too long
looking for my car
in the parking lot.
The car
had been there
all along.
If I had walked
just a little farther
the first time,
I would have seen it.
But I didn’t walk any farther.
I stopped
trusting my own memory.
The problem
wasn’t reality.
It was
how quickly
my mind
had left it.
That experience
made me think
about thinking
itself.
I Thought They Were Opposites
For a long time,
I believed
simply being present
was better
than living
inside my thoughts.
When I was caught
in endless thoughts,
I felt disconnected
from my body.
When I returned
to what I could
actually feel,
everything
became quieter.
So I assumed
thinking
was the problem.
One Conversation in the Kitchen
One day,
I was cooking
while listening to music
through my headphones.
I wasn’t following
a recipe.
I was simply
moving with the rhythm,
adding ingredients
as they felt right.
My son walked in
and asked me
a thoughtful question.
The moment
I started answering,
something changed.
The rhythm disappeared.
I smiled
and said,
“I don’t feel
like cooking anymore.”
Then I laughed.
“You put me back into thinking mode.”
He looked at me
seriously.
“I’ve grown
through thinking,”
he said.
“Thinking
is a good thing.”
For a moment,
I didn’t know
what to say.
Mid-point
Maybe
we weren’t
talking about
the same thing.
The Way He Experiences the World
Later,
I thought about him.
He loves philosophy.
He enjoys
understanding
how things work.
He organizes ideas.
He builds concepts.
Yet when he eats,
he notices
the smallest differences
in flavor.
He talks about food
with gratitude.
He enjoys every bite,
almost like
the quiet characters
in old Japanese films.
He thinks deeply.
But he also
senses deeply.
A Different Way of Returning
A few weeks earlier,
I had spent
two hours
at a small par-3 golf course.
I wasn’t trying
to hit the ball.
I was simply
imagining
a stone
skipping across a lake.
Again and again.
The movement
became lighter.
My body relaxed.
For two hours,
I stayed
in sensing.
When I told
my son about it,
he smiled.
“I told you,”
he said.
“That’s exactly it.”
Mid-point
Maybe
thinking
had never been
the problem.
What I Had Been Calling Thinking
That was when
something quietly shifted
inside me.
Maybe thinking
and sensing
were never enemies.
Maybe
I had never been
talking about thinking itself.
I had been talking
about something else.
The stories.
The judgments.
The endless loops
that kept pulling me away
from the life
that was already here.
Some thinking
helps us understand.
Some thinking
helps us create.
Some thinking
helps us solve problems.
And when
its work is finished,
it quietly steps aside,
allowing us
to return
to the taste of food,
the feeling of the wind,
and the simple rhythm
of being here.
Returning
Perhaps
thinking
is not the opposite
of sensing.
Perhaps
good thinking
is one of the ways
we return.
One morning,
it helped me
find my car.
Other times,
it helps me
understand something,
solve a problem,
or see a situation
more clearly.
Then,
when its work
is done,
it quietly
steps aside.
And life
comes back
into view.
Good thinking
doesn’t pull us
away from life.
It brings us
back to it.
