Thinking is like gardening

Bangkok changed its name, mindfulness & note-taking, focusing on the process

Hello intersectional thinkers 👋

Greetings from Bangkok 🇹🇭 aka Krung Thep Maha Nakhon - did you know the Thai capital updated its name in English back in February?

How to pronounce Krung Thep Maha Nakhon¹:

And did you know Bangkok’s full name is:

Krung Thep Maha Nakhon Amon Rattanakosin Mahinthara Ayuthaya Mahadilok Phop Noppharat Ratchathani Burirom Udomratchaniwet Mahasathan Amon Piman Awatan Sathit Sakkathattiya Witsanukam Prasit

กรุงเทพมหานคร อมรรัตนโกสินทร์ มหินทรายุธยา มหาดิลกภพ นพรัตนราชธานีบูรีรมย์ อุดมราชนิเวศน์มหาสถาน อมรพิมานอวตารสถิต สักกะทัตติยวิษณุกรรมประสิทธิ์

If you want to give this a try²:

Meaning: City of angels, great city of immortals, magnificent city of the nine gems, seat of the king, city of royal palaces, home of gods incarnate, erected by Vishvakarman at Indra's behest

Onto today’s line up!

🌱 Thinking is like gardening
💬 Koān - Zen paradoxes
🍗 Some processes can’t be rushed

1 unexpected intersection

“If you think you can’t, why think.” 

Dee Hock, Founder of Visa (found via Florian’s essay on Hock)

“Is this a dumb question? ”

They say there are no stupid questions. But I’ve been a chronic worrywart about how dumb my questions sound. So I kept my hand down and my mouth shut, pretending to know what’s going on. Anyone else can relate?

Until one day, I got too tired from living in self-inflicted confusion. And I realized that no one else knew what was going on either.

So why pretend?!

Instead of judging my thoughts, I started writing them down.

Because what if Uber’s founders prematurely judged the idea of “Start a business that facilitates people getting rides from strangers”? Or Larry and Sergei thought it was impossible to “organize the world's information”?

Thinking without judgement is like gardening 🌱. Not all seeds will sprout. But you won’t know which one will until you give them the chance the grow.

And also like gardening, non-judgemental thinking can be a dose of mental positivity.

Marco showed me this unexpected intersection of mindfulness and thinking here:

Being critical with the quality of our thoughts can be rigorous exercise. But thinking is also a process that can’t be rushed. Give your ideas the space to reveal its true self 🌳.

They could be a bud. Or they could be awesome :)

1 paradox

Koan, paradoxical puzzles and questions, are used in Zen Buddhism as a learning tool to “exhaust” a learner’s egotistic will, readying the mind to contemplate Truths.

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of koans.

I first learnt about koans from Christin’s guide Debug Your Meditation.

Christin shared a koan in her fable, followed by a thought-provoking prompt:

It is important to contemplate the ultimate goal of your own personal practice, because conventional goals assigned to meditation (e.g. increased productivity, even stress reduction) can sometimes lead practice astray.

This is because conventional goals are easily hijacked by the subconscious mind, and prevent us from seeing the hindrances. For example, increasing productivity may stem from a fear of not doing enough, and stress reduction may prevent us from addressing valid root causes of stress.

We can apply this to how we judge our thoughts as well. Why am I afraid of sounding stupid?

1 visual Zettelkasten

Alvin @JustSomeDev

Some processes can't be rushed.

The trick is knowing which is which.

One framework to think about this is speed vs velocity. Are we speeding up for the sake of speed, or are we actually trying to get somewhere?

Have a good week!

Vicky

P.S. New Obsidian templates video is up! If you want to save time and structure your notes, check it out:

1. Audio from Banana Thai’s YouTube video:

2. Ibid.