Gidday Friends,

Each week you will get a ‘Trilogy of Thoughts’ from me:

• Thought 1: Philosophical quote/idea: Reflecting on philosophical ideas helps us become critical thinkers.

• Thought 2: A critical thinking (CT) idea discussed originally.

• Thought 3: CT actions to implement: You must put in the work.

THOUGHT 1: A QUOTE

"Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world." - Jordan Peterson, in his book 12 Rules for Life.

Reflect on this quote in the coming weeks. It encapsulates the need to clean up your mind through incremental discipline and order. Over time, other parts of your life will begin to improve.

If you recoil at the fact I chose Jordan Peterson this week, this is a moment for you to think about that. A critical thinker can discuss anyone and anything. While it is fair and important to intelligently criticise JP, his continual cancellation has not been executed by the CT community.

A CT approach to JP would be to think, that this person has written over 100 scientific articles and appears to be intellectually sane, thus, I should at least attempt to understand his perspective. Until then, I must exert self-control and refrain from having a strong opinion.

Critical thinkers are not ignorant or fearful thinkers. They connect with difficult ideas especially those that challenge them. You will be surprised at how often a healthy thinker changes their original position AFTER seeking a bigger picture.

THOUGHT 2

TOPIC: How to become a master thinker with an almost impenetrable mind

In my past newsletters, you can scroll through and see specific teachings on CT in different areas. Today’s letter lays it all out and tells you how to become a critical thinker in the most efficient way possible with just TWO STEPS.

While inside the journey of practicing these steps, you WILL self-liberate your mind and heal all grievances you have had with your past at the same time.

You will become articulate, verbally effective, and an efficient thinker. And because you have cleaned that mind up, you usually begin to feel like the most powerful person in any room.

STEPS:

Step 1: Read and listen to as many diverse ideas as you can all the time.

Just start reading and hearing diverse ideas, whatever they may be.

The wilder the diversity of thought, the more your brain will fire up the synapses to figure out what you are hearing and why you are hearing it.

I can assure you that many people who see themselves as tolerant of diversity are usually attacking others who share similar cultures and histories. If the most diverse community members expressed their truly different cultural beliefs and ideas, it would quickly become apparent that there is much less tolerance among the groups than they might like to believe.

I know this because I am a type of hybrid member of three diverse communities all within a Western society plus I have read extensively on the dangers of identity politics.

I am Indian ethnically. I am Australian-Indian culturally (lived in Australia for 27 years). I married a Croatian man (displaced due to war) and have been part of the ex-Yugoslavian community for the past 18 years to which almost all the friends I spend most of my time belong. I have been privy to extreme diversity and I can assure you, the bridges between the three lenses are long. I have heard so many stories. People in my Indian and ex-Yugo groups seek more unity than the people in my Australian groups despite experiencing some very extremely shocking recent histories.

If you are not very tolerant of someone who has a different opinion from you, you do not understand what true diversity really is.

OPEN FOR CRITIQUE

Scientists, by default, receive one of the largest gifts of life: the gift of learning how to think.

We read so many ideas over and over, most of them pretty hard to grasp simultaneously to multiple other ideas. We go back, read them again, read more ideas that oppose the first or second idea, and either strengthen our original idea or adopt a new one that proves more valid.

We must always remain open and flexible in the pursuit of knowledge and improvement. Our minds begin to clean themselves up, drawing on clean thinking habits.

But even scientists have to be careful, as our human desire for power, groupthink, and the untamed ego always try to capture our minds’ attention. We have seen much of this affect the scientific community in recent times where they have lost a lot of trust.

This is why we all need to learn CT. If you know how to assess the relevance of information you have nothing to worry about.

The reason why scientific papers are important to still refer to is that they have gone through the process of cleaning themselves up. Some have problems but those are the ones we must detect with CT. As a rule, at the very least we ensure they can be proven to be as close to the known truth as possible.

Imagine you, the person, are a scientific paper. You want to become published and be seen as credible. You know you need work, so you ask for peer review. These peers critique your content, your strengths, weaknesses, and gaps. They tell you how to improve and become stronger. You felt offended and insecure when you heard this because you thought you were already pretty good. Now, though, you can work harder to be even better.

You also read multiple other papers with diverse ideas and perspectives to critique against your own. You use this different knowledge to improve yourself. You are listening thoughtfully, you are justifying why you accept or reject ideas. You never silence or censor another paper, otherwise, you would be a fraud and you want to be better than that.

A fraudster paper will reject any other paper that dared attempt to oppose them. They will instead eliminate anyone who tried to stop them and instead keep moving forward in their desire for power and publication.

This analogy highlights the importance of critique and embracing diverse perspectives for personal growth and credibility. It also reflects how cancel culture and non-critical thinkers in society today often reject opposing views, barricading meaningful discourse and reducing opportunities for self-improvement.

So, read a lot of things. Read something totally opposite to what you think. Read it slowly, like a course, this is my greatest advice. Think, reflect, note-take, and look up new words, ideas, and concepts. Then talk about them. Articulate, clarify, grow.

Step 2: You must let the world call you out as much as possible.

The world is constantly telling you the areas you need to improve.

Listen to it. It’s not that hard.

Most people receive negative feedback and either resist and attack back, get angrier, walk away, or pretend it didn’t happen. Then there is the small group of brave ones who face their mind and try to understand why it stirred so much emotion.

The brave ones will make the most mistakes, but they also learn the fastest. The aggressive ones will yell and shout the most, self-censor, and censor others, they also improve the least.

Jordan Peterson's quote, "Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world," has a subheading, “Clean up your room.” This is exactly what he means: You cannot critique the world with fierce opinion while you have not critiqued yourself with the same ferocity first.

Your external world will hold you accountable daily.

Feedback can free your mind quicker than years of therapy. A good therapist helps you face your worst stories, but you can be your own therapist by letting the world tell you the truth. You must be the judge whether you need professional help or you can manage this yourself.

We receive messages daily about our fit with our social world. All we have to do is decide whether the problem is an internal one or an external one.

Many privileged people blame the outside world.

Critical thinkers look inward first and ‘clean up their room’.

TRIGGERS CAN BE POWERFUL TEACHERS

Do you get triggered by some topic or particularly dislike some public figure? How and when the trigger happens is important. If the person who triggered you had no intention to do so, then this is the topic you should use as your CT challenge.

If someone intended to personally offend you, well that is a different story and one we are not talking about today.

Get to the point of figuring out why you are emotional about the trigger. You have an insecurity so deal with it. A critical thinker can talk about any topic without losing their cool.

If you decide after some thought that it was still wrong, inappropriate, or unfair, then fair call, move away from it. But you have to assess its validity first. Not everything is unfair and most of the time your perception simply believes it to be.

For example, if people avoid you commonly, it’s not because they are jealous or can’t handle your intellect. Just own it, and reflect on your behavior:

• What did you say?

• Could you have worded it better?

• Does it affect you? (that’s a yes if you think about it regularly)

• What can you do to improve?

Ever since I began to tell myself the truth and read diverse ideas, I know more about more things. Suddenly, I began to attract more people and repel fewer. I used to repel people all the time. I also knew I poorly articulated my ideas and had almost no knowledge on anything. Who would want to talk to me?

It is as simple as that. That’s the clean truth.

We must face the world, allow critique, and stay grounded, real, true, and fair.

We owe it to society and those who seek our advice to have done the necessary work to be as clean as possible. Otherwise, how dare we unfairly infect another person’s mind without rendering our imperfections transparent.

THOUGHT 3

Activities to Implement to Improve Your Thinking Skills:

• Read Jordan Peterson’s book 12 Rules for Life and think about it as you engage with it. Remain open-minded and curious as you interact with the ideas. This is especially what you should do if you think you dislike him but you have never read one of his pieces of work. Then think about how his ideas can add to and expand other ideas. Knowledge is not meant to be a dichotomy and you may like one idea but feel another is able to be challenged.

• Look up and learn about cognitive biases, this is important as you are battling with them daily. This will never stop but critical thinking will help you use them.

• Next time the world gives you a clue by triggering an emotion within you, bravely lean into it. Figure out what is going on. Be honest. Take your time, there is no rush but just start with knowing there is a problem you must face.

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  Until next Sunday, take care.

  Dr. Esha