The Art of Rumination

How many of you truly "ruminate at length" about anything? I try to, but its often more difficult that it seems.

To me, "runinating" involves a quiet turning-over in the mind of a superficially simple truth; perhaps a truth long well-known and reduced to snappish cliche, or something so accepted as to be mindlessly "filed away" and "accesssed when necessary."

The Art of Rumination consists of taking one of these ancient, simple truths, the more cliche and seemingly played-out the better, and turning it over and over in your mind. Busy people can break the process up as necessary...runinate when you can, and when inturrepted, put a "mental bookmark" wherever you were. Return to your ruminations, in the train, in the car, while commuting or having a quiet aparatif...whatever.

A more intense, harder-to-achieve rumination would involved more prolonged periods of silence and lack of intrurruption...maybe you'd ruminate while gazing out the window, maybe you could idly scrawl this and that in a notebook to keep things moving (although writing too much can be dangerous...it can take your easily to more analytical thoughts.)

During rumination, you take time. You probe for "the truth," but you son't necessarily expect firm answers: now, soon, or perhaps even ever. You poke and prod at the subject from different angles. You look at your own assumptions, perhaps questioning them to a greater or lesser extent. You re-visit things you thought you knew.

Topics for rumination can range from the most profound philosophical truths to various personal issues or questions about job, strategy...the range is unlimited.

The point is not to "get an answer." Its to let the idea percolate, slowly, like a fine coffee. At the end will be a cup to drink.

How many actually think this way at length anymore. Its a lot harder than it sounds. Can you carry out sustained rumination (without letting your shattered attention span drag you onto a different topic) for 15 minutes...an hour? A day? Some of the old coots in the rural town I grew up in sat there with plugs of chaw in their lips on the general store porch and seemed to do nothing but ruminate, all day long, day after day.

It strikes me as a profound tragedy how this type of thought has dwindled...and how little mourned its passing.

Hmph, very interesting. I've been ruminating for years, circling various aspects of the same central themes until it has become like some sort of holographic grooved vinyl record in my mind. I would so like to become a writer and turn it all into a science fiction book some day, and get it all down on paper. It's also possible to have too much to think. I've decided that I'm going to start ruminating about nothing, talking about nothing, being nothing and doing nothing. Maybe like you say, after ruminating about something for a while, it's good to let it go, and maybe then actual wisdom can take it's place.

I think the brain is set up for different processes. Gathering information like a hyperactive packrat is one. Standing back and ruminating is another. There are others, to be sure, and deeper versions of this, like meditiation, contemplation, and visualization.

Right now, this very day, we posess the technology that allows you go to an DR., sit in front of some kind of suped-up MRI pannel, and the doc can tell you which areas or your brains are beinng used and which are not as you think in different ways and talk about certian things. The technology certainly has potential for abuse (I see it as the first step towards "mind reading at a distance via computer," which will be an evil development)...but it also shows that our brain and the types of thinking you do involve different neurological paths and "sub-systems." It is my belief (along with a number of neurologitsts) that balancing the use ways we think by uising different brain areas and functions is akin to going to the gym and working out different muscule groups. Over time, the whole being becomes stronger. This makes intuitive sense to me.

Seems we are too focused on the "raw aquisition of info" asn "analytical processing" aspects of our brains and are ignoring some of the more subtle but no-less-necessary aspects of wisdom...such as rumination and other lost arts of thought.

Your writing is hypnotic, striking core emotions, but relaxing.

I will ruminate the underlying message or, lack thereof.

YEs, after i opened my eyes to a lot in the world... i have gained this part back or it has newly formed but for the past two months ... i have been getting more intelligent and in tune with my body/mind and this is one thing that i always do now.. but i never get bored any more ... i have stop my Adderall usage ( took it fore 8 months while in college) and i believe my ADD really helps with this process because my mind will just throw random things into my thought process . but the scary thing is i asked for all this... 8 months ago when i was at rutgers.. i asked "GOD"(not even a spiritual guy at that time) if i could just plainly be smarter... went to rutgers and felt inferior to everyone.. but not any more..

love peace enlightenment

Originally posted by OmegaPoint
after ruminating about something for a while, it's good to let it go, and maybe then actual wisdom can take it's place.

I have found that to be the case most of the time, actually that's what i do after a while and it works very well.

I just let the thought go after i have been playing with it for a while, then forget about it and suddenly, when i'm focused on something else, work, reading, etc, the thought comes back to me as very clear concepts i could not get when i was focused on that particular bit.

I believe the mind keeps working on it, as a "background task" even if we stop thinking about it, and it just pops up when it has been worked out or new things have been found that can improve our understanding of that idea.

I have started to use this as a tested and proved formula since a few years ago and it really works.


[edit on 12-6-2009 by Kaifan]