Imagine that you have a McLaren F1 race car. Now imagine that all you do with it is drive to the corner shop to buy vegetables (#healthyliving). Now imagine if everyone did that.
What a silly world we’d live in. So silly that someone could write a whole essay about it and call it The Unraced Life.
But isn’t it sad that we already do something just like that...with our brains?
We’ve been gifted this immensely powerful machine inside our skulls. And what do we use it for? Worrying about the future. Regretting the past. Chasing careers. Refreshing social media. Watching TV (yes yes, F1 is allowed, otherwise this analogy falls apart). Posting opinions on LinkedIn. Arguing in the comment section. And then worrying some more.
What if we took even a sliver of that time...to think? To think about how we’re living. What actually matters to us. What we keep putting off. And how we might show up tomorrow just a little more awake than we were today.
But we won’t...because we (yes, we, the adults...can we stop blaming the kids for everything wrong with Instagram and TikTok?) love the distraction. It keeps us from dealing with the baggage we carry around like emotional airport luggage no one wants to check in.
We’re fast becoming a world made up of the Thinking Class, the Skilled Do-ers, and the Unskilled Do-ers. Most of us live in the middle group. We rent out brain space to learn how to do something, and then spend the rest of our lives repeating it...with slight upgrades.
Let me be clear...this isn’t about money. We all need to work. But work shouldn’t be what defines us. This is about leaving your F1 car in the garage because you’re reheating leftovers again. We need to raise our game. We need to start thinking. Thinking unthought thoughts.
And I believe most of you reading this are capable of doing that kind of heavy-duty thinking. It’s difficult...our minds are cluttered. But don’t you want to clear the freeway and take your mental Ferrari (or whatever the brand is) for a proper run? Or are you content numbing it with dopamine hits and endless scrolls?
This reminds me of the story of Ibn Arabi, who once heard a voice say to him, “It was not for this that you were created,” as he was consuming a certain beverage. The same goes for our brains. They were not created to post blogs, collect likes, or doomscroll TikTok (do you scroll on TikTok?). They were meant for bigger, more beautiful things.
If I may borrow your brain for 15 seconds...just imagine the kind of world we could create if more of us used it for thought rather than just reaction.
And this is just the brain. We haven’t even entered the realm of the mind and consciousness...territory that science still struggles to grasp, tethered as it is to reason. I’m talking about Rimbaud when he said, “Our feeble reason hides the infinite from us.” And Blake, who wrote, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.”
Most people file that under “unthinkable.” But don’t you even want to dream of getting to a place where reality finally surrenders its mask?
To get there...we need to start thinking.
Since this post is about thinking, I would really like to know your thoughts. You have too beautiful a mind to have your thoughts shrunk into one of 7 emojis. Share your thoughts...not a thumbs up emoji! Say your thing!
Full disclosure: I’m not a fan of F1. I don’t even know if the car is technically called a race car or a fast thing or “now you see it, now you don’t“. But when I said F1 race car, I meant that extremely low center of gravity, huge-tired, spoiler-fitted machine that goes around in circles for hours while we all cheer like it’s something meaningful. I know I know that great innovations come out of the F1 circuit. But if you really want to impress me, give me a 2.2 second fuel-up at the gas station.
Until then, you’re just burning rubber...and the planet...for bragging rights.