Musings at Altitude

I enjoy pondering.  In fact, I specifically need to carve out time to ponder.  And I have preferred times to ponder too – at altitude; while mowing the yard; while sitting on the back deck looking up into a sky filled with countless stars; while sitting on the front porch enjoying the morning breeze and watching the sun come up over the eastern sky; when zoned out on a conference call and looking straight into the mountains; when driving long distances.  All of these allow me to disconnect from the things bombarding me at the time and get away to a tetherless state for some deep thinking.

A Turkish proverb provides a lesson in life about pondering – “Listen a hundred times; ponder a thousand times; speak once.” 

I haven’t learned that lesson.  For me it would probably be, “Listen just enough to think you know what someone is talking about; ponder just enough to frame something mostly off topic and probably very confusing to say; speak just to prove how smart you are and then prove how smart you’re not by doing so.”

If listening precludes pondering, and pondering precludes speaking, then a well-listened and well-pondered speaking should ultimately be steeped in wisdom.  After all, Proverbs 8:12 says, “I, wisdom, dwell together with prudence; I possess knowledge and discretion.”

If pondering is at its core an act of problem solving, and problem solving at its core is an act of finding the right answer or determing the appropriate path, and the right answer or appropriate path are by definition determined through the prudence and wisdom matched with the knowledge and discretion of those doing the pondering, then perfect pondering should yield perfect problem solving, which should result in the perfect answer or perfect path.

Francis Bacon said, “Men commonly think according to their inclinations, speak according to their learning and imbibed opinions, but generally act according to custom.”  Biased pondering in affect gets us to biased decisions and thus biased actions. 

Is it possible to ponder without bias?  Even more importantly, is perfect pondering possible with bias?

Since perfection is a journey rather than a destination, then maybe perfect pondering is an act to eliminate bias, or at least to mitigate the preordained conclusions and actions that would result from bias.

This gives me more to ponder.