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Action creates thought, just as much as thought creates action

If we were to attempt to represent our subconscious thoughts graphically, we would have great difficulty, because by definition our subconsciousness is invisible to us. For the purposes of this exercise we might represent them as indistinct freeform shapes floating around, for example:

The next level up in our consciousness might be a layer of vague thoughts, not yet fully formed but showing potential. It is the area of the hazy idea, the solidifying thought, or the daydream. Subconscious thoughts from below have prodded and hinted enough to create vague ponderings and barely conscious ideas. Graphically we could show it as shapes forming, as:

In turn, these patterns further form into distinct and clear thoughts and concepts. At this stage, we are able to study ideas, place them into categories and reason with the results. Our shapes are yet further strengthened and ordered:

Although they are fairly stable at this point, but they are not solid enough to be dependable for long. If we articulate them, however, they transform once again. Boundaries between the concepts are strengthened, and we can more confidently experiment with them or embellish them:

They are now much more likely to be permanently available for later recall. Finally, if we were to put the ideas into action, it would make it solid and dependable:

The following diagram shows the thought process as one continuous model of layering:

A
B
C
D
E

A: Action
B: Language, speech
C: Clear thinking, patterns, categories, reasoning
D: Barely conscious thoughts, vague ideas, daydreams
E: Subconscious mind

We can greatly speed up the process of surfacing from the depths to the higher levels through the clarity of our intentions.

Natural speech is a communication of information by means of the codes of language. This means that, to communicate, man has to have a definite motive or intention (knowing what and why he has to communicate) and to use for his purposes a particular language. 2

We can capture the thought by merely willing it to happen, and putting it into action, any action, helps to freeze it. Languaging is one of the important accelerator we can use.

Languaging guides us from chaos to control. One story that illustrates this perhaps better than any other is that of Helen Keller. She had multiple perceptive disabilities as a child (she was both deaf and blind). Her world did not have cause and effect associations. She could not make any association between what she requested and what she received. When she was in her pre-teen years, through patient support by her family for the first time she associated the water symbol she made with the water that was being given to her. That was the beginning of the world for her. Suddenly, she realized that things -- objects and concepts -- have names. She began a breakthrough experience that revealed her hidden intelligence.

Language need not be spoken to have its effect. Merely mentally rehearsing a conversation or speech adds enormous clarity........

Infants spend a lot of time babbling before they start speaking words we can understand. This is a time of rapid learning; the babbling may make no sense to us, but there in intended meaning nevertheless:

It is well established that children's language comprehension is far ahead of their language production. 3

At first, we assume that the infant is not aware that babbling is meaningless to adults. It has thoughts that are somewhat clear, but it takes practice to turn them into verbal sounds. Through this practice, the thoughts are further clarified.

Finding a suitable metaphor for this process of clarification is not easy. For example, the playing of speech from a gramophone record or cassette tape will not do, because every time the needle or read/write head touches the surface of the recorded medium, it damages it slightly, making the speech on output slightly distorted. This process would accumulate over hundreds of playings, the information gradually breaking down. Even a compact disk, free from abrasive physical deterioration through touch, does not improve the sound each time it is played.

Perhaps the appliance most closely comparable is the unsophisticated photocopier. In its attempt to produce a clear resolution, images are either black or white, with no blurring in between. An original image that has complex gradients will be simplified but made permanent, in the same way that the act of turning thoughts into speech loses much subtlety, and much unwanted noise, of the original.

Linguists have long argued that our capacity for language derives from our physical ability to speak, but this now seems not to be the case. When children are not exposed to speaking and listening when they are young, they may not be able to speak at a later time. They may, however, develop other 'languages' or means to communicate that are just as complex and meaningful.

Laura Ann Petitto, a cognitive psychologist at McGill University in Montreal suggests ''Language is a distinct mental capacity that can be expressed through speaking, signing, or whatever.'' She studied deaf babies with deaf parents who use only American Sign Language to communicate with each other and with their babies. After videotaping and analyzing hundreds of hours of hand movements made by the infants, Petitto found that deaf babies were ''babbling in the manual mode.''

What does this mean? Petitto says ''Speech is one of the modes [we use] to communicate what is going on in our heads and this mode is distinct from our capacity for language --- from our ability as humans to seek structure and pattern in the world and to express those patterns.''

We have all seen the therapeutic effect of talking through our difficult problems. This seems to be a magically insightful process. Often these are problems only because they are so unclear, and it is easy to become overwhelmed by dark and mysterious forces we do not understand. Talking, writing or drawing are all means of communicating and clarifying thoughts. In the Tertiary Associative Cortex of the brain it has been shown that neural connections are made and patterns established when we use our capacity to put things into language.

Simply talking about problems can therefore be an enormous lift because it raises consciousness an entire level in the process. In this context, it does not matter who we speak to; the process is the same whether we speak to a therapist, a stranger or the mirror on the wall. Writing down our thoughts is equally helpful, perhaps more so because of the tangible visible evidence that results.

In a very real sense, the writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratifications, is a curious anticlimax. 4

Action will remove the doubt that theory cannot solve. 5

Thoughts are constantly rippling both up and down the layers. Thoughts spur on actions, and the actions define the thoughts; it is a continuous two-way process. Perhaps every new idea we speak or write triggers off a huge and elegant sequence of interactions deep into our mind. At the lower levels, we are always busy trying to make sense of what has just happened, even if it is we who created the happening.

This model also applies to large organizations. The leader is at the deeper levels of the model. If a sense of vision is communicated to the outer layers, it is comparable to the unconscious mind's proddings. Successive layers add more and more detail and practicality until the implementers are reached. They may not always know the original source of the influence. This adds some validation to the often-suggested theory (not always serious) that company organization charts should be inverted, with the leaders at the bottom of the page influencing the layers above, eventually reaching to the troops at the top of the page who do the detailed work.

In practical terms, we can improve our learning skills by applying the model to our current thinking. Imagine that you have a vague idea. It lingers for a moment, and just before it evaporates forever you decide to attempt to grasp it. You therefore turn your attention to it. Rather than concentrate too hard on it directly, you give it some space and allow it to rise naturally, otherwise the glare of the spotlight might cause it to wither away or bury itself back into its subconscious fold.

Because of the rich complexity of the multilayered mind, the implications of your conscious decision to grasp this elusive plaything can be huge. If, in turn, you elevate it through the levels and ultimately act upon it, you have validated the process, encouraging further new ideas to surface. The process is encouraged if we make the right decisions to act. Learning in these constantly shifting states is easy and deep. It is only when what happens at the highest layers conflicts with those lower down that we have problems, not only with learning. This is the very definition of psychological conflict. If they remain unresolved, we spend energy blocking our thoughts rather than releasing them, with ultimately disastrous mental and physical consequences. We function optimally if we decide to be in tune with our selves, and it is only through our words and then our actions that we can prove to ourselves that we mean what we think. In return, we receive the gift of clarification, understanding and accelerated learning.

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No matter how much faculty of idle seeing a man has, the step from knowing to doing is rarely taken

-- Emerson
The Conduct of Life, 1860

The great end of life is not knowledge but action. 6

The child, being irresponsible, learns easily, yet the adult needs to add more responsibility to catch up.

When we were infants we had no responsibilities, and we learned at a breathtaking rate. But as the years went by many of us methodically taught ourselves that learning is uninteresting, difficult or irrelevant. Consequently, that is the reality that we made for ourselves.

We need to make some new decisions in order to change. Otherwise, each glimmer of a new idea at the moment of its birth will be extinguished, because of our previous orders to that effect. We can hardly expect anything different to happen if we have systematically ignored the vast majority of our new ideas and learning potentials for the past years or decades.

As an experiment, we might look at new learning opportunities with a new light. As an idea timidly emerges, we might look on it not with welcome pleasure and respect. We might consider feeling a sense of responsibility towards nurturing it and seeing where it leads.

It is this sense of responsibility for our own thoughts that can create a breakthrough in learning acceleration. We have to show ourselves that we do mean it.

Action springs not from thought, but from a readiness for responsibility

-- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Letters and Papers from Prison, 1953

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We are what we do more than we do what we are

Prasad: I was recently talking with a friend of mine who was having motivation problems at work. He did not seem interested in his job any more, and was looking at alternatives. He was sad and upset. He found it difficult to begin or complete tasks at work, yet he was making little progress in carrying out the actions needed to find new employment. He complained of a lack of energy, and indeed his entire metabolism seemed uncharacteristically slow.

While I was talking with him, I noticed a new dining table. He told me that he made it himself over the previous few months, the very period during which he had said he was immobile. When I complemented him on his work, his eyes lit up. The table was of very high quality and he took pride in it. Nobody had told him to construct it, and there was no financial or career justification. But he had found something that he wanted to do, so he simply did it and enjoyed every moment. He had energy to spare, but only for what made sense to him at that time. When he said that he had no energy, it is easy to suppose that his subconscious mind would be puzzled to hear that.

Children are not told to walk when they are crawling, or run when they are walking. They learn and create because it is fun, natural and instinctive. We remain creative and quick to learn as long as we enjoy it. As we grow up we learn that we should create things for the sake of others, and we learn to seek their approval. We are asked to create a 'product' or 'project' as work, and we see that we should create according to external expectations and standards. If we do not find it easy to accept the purpose or meaning of the end result, it becomes more and more difficult to do the work.

In contemporary speech, the meaning of learning has been dragged down to 'taking in information...' We should think of learning as the expansion of one's capacity -- to create, to produce results. 7

Perhaps midlife crises are simply the periods in our lives when we are starting to accept that we should only be doing what is meaningful. The challenge is therefore to decide what it is that we do believe in, and choose to act creatively in that area. Creativity is not about seeing different things but seeing things differently. Once we find something exciting to do, accelerated learning will automatically result. Not everyone, however, finds it easy to imagine their current situation, for example their work setting, capable of generating excitement. David E. Berlow 8 suggests that what really excites people and provides meaning in their work is:

• A chance to be tested, to make it on one's own
• A chance to take part in a social experiment
• A chance to do something well
• A chance to do something good
• A chance to change the way things are

Job aspects that were found most important to readers of Psychology Today 9 were: