The Theory of the Institute

OVERVIEW

INTRODUCTION

What is Reflection about?

Who is this book for?

A novelist takes up the story

REFLECTION AS WESTERN MEDITATION

Is there a difference between the mindset of the East and that of the West?

What is involved in reflection

Some suggestions about ideas worth preserving through Reflection today

Ways to prepare for Reflection

Some basic concepts of Western Reflection thinking:

Further reflection on REFLECTION

What celebrated people say about reflection

Finding yourself includes observing Yourself.

Philosophy comes in many guises

Preferred priorities may come into clearer view

Reflection – Thinking for yourself

A session of Contemplation

PRACTICAL WISDOM

How should we live our lives

A Training for Practical Wisdom

An Unpopular approach

Some outré ideas

Have You Suffered a bereavement?

Are You Undergoing a Divorce?

DOUBTING THOMAS – the downside of Reflection

A VIRTUAL AGORA FOR OCCIDENTAL MEDITATION

CONTEMPLATION: ‘Ruminative’ reflection in action

Reflection and Philosophers

Language

Finding yourself includes Observing Yourself – More thinking about who you are.

What can we learn about ourselves from the animal world?

Longevity and maturity

The Physical world

Individuals are communal beings as well as individuals

What, if anything, is unique about me?

What is it that conveys an ‘essence’?

Our soul and the Afterlife

Celestial Justice

A Blur

Schrӧdinger’s Cat…

Is there one truth or system that is sufficient to explain the Mystery?

More about ‘Unseen Nature’

A few observations on this way of looking at the world

A all-too-brief gaze at the heavens

SOME CONCLUSIONS

APPENDIX

CONCEPTS

Patterns of thought about which we may not be fully aware

The Moving Goalpost

The Irony Principle

The Proximity Principle

The Threshold point

Binary Thinking

Concepts relating to international relations and society

Morality should be the same for leaders as for the led

Value Systems as opposed to Belief Systems

FURTHER ASPECTS OF REFLECTION

Reflective Practice

Reflective practice encourages innovation

Reflective practice encourages engagement

Objective Thinking

Metacognition

Critical Reflection

Transformative Learning

The Art of Self-Scrutiny

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Dear Reader,

We are inclined to devalue, even overlook the obvious. Everyone supposes they know how to reflect. It is all so simple that perhaps you don’t need to read any more.

Reflection is not the same as ratiocination. The design of this book is on a reflective pattern. There is a charm in it, like taking a stroll in the woods. The mind can play free, traipsing up a byway here or there that looks intriguing even if a digression. Rumination and association of ideas replace the plot and plan of this story. Observations and ideas, like fauna in a field, crop up, some colourful, some thorny. A bloom or a tree may catch an eye and lodge in a memory. Cliches and flowers respectively are part of our mental and physical landscape. We can overlook them, not seeing what is front of our eyes, just as a crowd can be a good place in which to hide.

Compare the approach in this book to a ramble in a forest. Chacun son gout! (To each, his own taste.) People can play golf instead or, like Mark Twain, feel that: ‘golf is a good walk spoiled.’ William Hazlitt¹ saw the transformative power on the mind: of a solitary walk in nature: ‘Give me the clear blue sky over my head, and the green turf beneath my feet, a winding road before me, and a three hours’ march to dinner — and then to thinking!’

Questions more than answers are par for the course in this book. It is not essential to accept anything herein lock, stock and barrel; the question is more about whether there is a nugget to be unearthed here or there. A spot of spring-cleaning beckons so as to buff up some of the mustier niches in our minds, even turn them into vitrines.

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What is reflection about?

Reflection is an Activity that too often does not own up to the name.  It is aligned with a horizontal True North of ourselves.  It is a cylinder too often uninspected under the bonnet in the engine that drives people forward into life’s choices.  It is time in our speeded-up world that it has a more recognised niche in our communal psyche.  A brake should be applied to an autopilot journey that may prevent us haring off into darker or unnecessarily circuitous passageways of thinking and codes of behaviour. A winnowing, clarifying process is best for the construction of theories built on solid foundations.  To a large extent, our personas are what we have thought, as well as what we feel and have felt. We should think again.

Why not have a dig at Sir Malcolm Bradbury as alas he’s now under the sod? Which is NOT a weak pun; well, it is, but it didn’t start off with that intention. OOPS! Second thoughts should have prompted a re-devising of that curtain-raiser. For third thoughts, read on.

Sir Malcolm was brilliant for a lot of reasons but particularly – for you of uncharacteristically long attention span for Generation Z who have persevered with this book thus far; …OOPS! Apologies for recycling undigested pap! The author should have twice before writing that sentence! On reflection, your generation has had a most unfair press! You are experts at the art of concentration; you have patience in abundance.

Sir Malcolm set up a ‘Creative Writing’ course. A ridiculous idea, it may sound? If you want to write, just DO IT. Great writers in history have not needed tips from Sir Malcolm Bradbury! Well, maybe Immanuel Kant could have tried to be a tad less opaque but did Shakespeare go to a ‘writing school’? Kazuo Ishiguro, one of the most critically acclaimed contemporary fiction authors having been awarded several major literary prizes including a Nobel Prize in Literature, was on Bradbury’s course. It taught him valuable stuff. You can’t Pooh! Pooh! it saying he didn’t need to be potty trained in his craft. He doesn’t say it. He acknowledges a big debt to the course.

Reflection, too, is not as easy as it seems. You might think you know how to do it, and do it in the best way. But, do you?

Close attention to what is going on in your life, like close attention to what you hear and read can pay substantial dividends. Ideas can well up in your mind that no doubt were there, unnoticed. ‘Second thoughts’ need not mean, as is implied, that first thoughts were wrong; Second Thoughts can mean that you understand better the thinking that went into your first thoughts. You can plan better the road ahead.

Peace of mind, better decision making, a constructive attitude and widening of horizons are all dividends paid by proper reflection. Our lives – in spiritual and in daily terms – can be improved by reflection.

Reflection can be about anything, a process that leads to better thinking because done with care.

In this book there is reflection about why we are on this earth, what it means to be conscious of oneself, some fundamental concepts that actuate us which often are not fully considered, ideas about life and possible afterlife, and, chiefly, on reflection itself. All in all, this reflection on possible avenues of reflection, can only aim at touching the tip of the tip of the tip of this peak.

Common sense rather than what the Great have said is a watchword.

Some ways in which we think – individually and as a society – are not scrutinised as a matter of course. Evaluating them usually goes by default. It is attempted here.  It is less a blueprint for specific action than, ideally, a re-jig of the thinking that makes us, and society, tick in something other than a ‘tik-tok’ sense.

There are many ways to consider Reflection; in certain quarters of academia is is considered as a subject in its own right. There are mention of just a few theories in the appendix and a section in the website of The Institute of Reflection looks at alternative approaches.

Reflection about Reflection may prompt further delving into subjects of fascination, a step along the path of a lifetime journey.

Here is a quick check-list about some key aspects of Reflection:

• Reflection is ‘Meditation’ shorn of the capital initial letter ‘M’. Reflection and Meditation used to be much the same thing but particularly since the ‘sixties and a flow into Western thought of ideas of the East, Meditation has been hived off almost into being a separate tuype of cult.

• Reflection can be so much more than a sweetie to suck at whim. Sometimes one even may not like what it reveals.

• There are different ways to reflect, whether intellectual or ruminative.

• There is so much to reflect on, whether Practical or Theoretical.

• Reflection for instance encourages us to dwell on fascinating subjects we often tend to take for granted: the world…. who we are…why we are here….what we believe.

• The mentality required for Reflection can enhance practical wisdom.

• You can actively rather than lethargically relax; you can do the same with reflection.

• It can help identify realistic plans and reshape behaviour patterns and much besides that is in line with worthwhile purposes of society and the way we live our own lives.

People devote time and energy to things that, in the scheme of things, are not so important.

The idea of ‘Reflection’ being important in itself can help ameliorate a too-fast pace of life. Something at times may be awry in our lifestyles as we rush from hither to yon. People increasingly plead that ‘I want time for myself’.  The passing of a leisured lifestyle can be seen in countless ways; in, say, the lapse in writing of letters with time for delivery and pause for reflectilon on how to react. It is one of the ways that has made for a shift in how people see and live life. Time spent in reflection should be encouraged especially today.

The proposed alterations in thinking or habits may be marginal but from acorns do oak trees grow – a variant of the ‘1% rule’ that ‘small compounded improvements lead to significant overall gains.’

Health warning: Reflection is only for those who have the time for it. For those dealing with overwhelming pressure on their time, life and death matters say, Reflection can be seen as a luxury. No one is asked to lay down a sword in a deadly combat and tell the guy about to spear you: ‘Do hold on a mo! I’ve gotta get out my reflection mat; it’s ‘that’ time of day!’ But it is to be embraced where possible as a flower of the civilised life as is music or literature, apart from advantages as may appear in these pages. If nothing else, it may well be of profit to let the saying ‘Look Before your Leap’ take root in the mind and forestall thoughts sliding away from the importance of that and similar saws just because they are well known.

Who is this book for?

This book is a lucky dip for anyone, whether well versed or unlettered, prepared to look into the value of a way of thinking – reflection – that tends to be taken for granted but which can repay tenfold a concentration on it: Whatever may be your interest or approach, it can be a fun ride, a useful intellectual exercise or a life-enhancing adventure.

It is a journey of common sense open to one and all.  Maybe, in disagreement with some of the ideas found in this book, you will clarify your own thinking.

If you are an academic given to scooping up recondite references, this book may not be for you. It may be that you have pored over learned tracts that touch on the subject matter of this book and and may sniff at what to you is elementary thinking or controversial passages.

Are you Mr Everyman or Miss or Mrs Everywoman? Perhaps you should listen more to Mr Everyman or Miss or Mrs Everywoman? Many are the self-appointed Guides telling us what and how to think, or wiseacres, or the Greats of philosophy. This text makes no great claims of itself yet emphasises that there is a reservoir of wisdom in us all if we care to tap into it.

Some passages will be Déjà vu to some readers and not others. Some readers may demur at what they see as abstruse chunter, some may like to consider ordinary thinking on some extraordinary subjects. Whether you skim-read or prefer to ‘read, mark, learn and inwardly digest.’ one never knows what surprises there may be in store as each day starts, or as you turn each page of this book.