[Mike Todd]

Hi Christina,

Thanks, that’s a wonderful reminder not to get swept away by the current of one’s thoughts. It reminds me of something Jon Kabat-Zinn said with reference to mindfulness and presencing: “remember to get out of your own way”.

I confess – and you may be aware of this from another thread – I get a buzz from intellectualising/ideating. However, I like to believe I stay grounded, because, with respect to what makes an idea useful/substantive, I concur with the view that ideas should foster rather than stymie creativity, or more generally, ideas should enlarge rather than diminish our appreciation. It’s this “widening of the world” that gives me pleasure, rather than the bare act of churning out ideas. There’s also the question of whether one’s ideas may be considered insightful or true, accepting that truth is multifaceted and as easy to grasp as water. With regard to this, I defer direct judgement, instead relying on usefulness (as defined above) as a tentative guide to concordance with reality, additionally coloured by whether or not an idea fruitfully reconciles and helps integrate erstwhile opposing “truths”.