After learning anything, being exposed to new information, encountering art or any other type of cultural artifact, take a moment to yourself and quietly process what you’ve just intellectually imbibed.
This heuristic—to pause and think after taking something in—serves multiple purposes.
Doing so allows us to slam that new information up against things we already know and derive new meaning from those intersections; to find connections between seemingly unconnected things.
It allows us to weed out momentary misunderstandings and to parse things that weren’t instantly processed. Rather than moving on to the next thing, it gives our brains a chance to catch up, to realize what we’ve just learned, and to either store that information or send up flags that encourage us to take some further action: followup questions, emotional responses, or prudent physical or psychological adjustments.
In some situations, this disciplined moment of calm, of waiting, of intentional delay, gives us the opportunity to sort through what we’re feeling, why we’re feeling that way, and what it all means. Whether, perhaps, we should more optimally respond differently: rather than with reflexive anger or shame, for instance, with empathy and forgiveness.
A brief interlude between absorption and response (or more absorption) can also give us the time to check our facts, compare notes, and assess alternative sources of information.
This is especially useful online, where we’re incentivized to quickly click ‘like’ and ‘share’ and move on without ascertaining whether or not that tidbit we shared is legitimate or merely emotion-inducing. We’re prone to outrage, to tribal-thinking, to Othering others when we succumb to these user interface triggers. But a moment of ponderment, of critical thinking, can help us to avoid spreading nonsense and further enflaming inessential conflicts.
A thoughtful pause can help us catch a fleeting thought, determine the utility of a way of thinking, distinguish fact from fiction, valuable act from inconsiderate reflex, and forward movement from treadmill-like behavior.
Sometimes the most practical, healthy thing we can do for ourselves is to free up time throughout our day for quick hits of nothing at all.
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