In his master piece “Crime
and Punishment” Fyodor Dostoyevsky places his protagonist Rodion
Romanovich Raskolnikov an impoverished ex-law student, who spends days laying
on an old battered sofa in a tiny, dirty room where he lodges, his landlady’s
servant Nastasya enters the room, asks Raskolnikov why he doesn’t
leave his room and do something useful. This exchange takes place between them:
Raskolnikov: but I am
doing something.
Nastasya: what? What are
you doing?
Raskolnikov: I am
thinking.
Nastasya:*sniggers sarcastically*
Thinking!? And how much money have you made from your “Thinking”?
We live in a time where we
constantly feel an urge to do something from the moment we open our eyes in the
morning to check our mobile devices to the very last moment of the day when
we.. um..“again” check our mobile devices! We never give much importance to
Just Thinking. Most of the things we do on a daily basis we do mindlessly, such
things are mundane of course; washing, having breakfast, driving to work,
paying bills, locking the front door.. etc., we do them without needing to
think, however, we also do a lot of things which deserve a lot of thought and
attention without the thought or attention they deserve. We never look again! So
many of our hurried, thoughtless replies, conversations, so many of nature’s
beauty or nature’s ugliness requires us to stop, to stop and think, but we are
always in a hurry, in a screaming rush.
Things are different at first glance.. look again.
