Making my little Art Degero bio the other day, brought up some old thoughts. I actually wrote about them during school this year for one of my classes. It is how when you find something, like painting for me, that puts you in a meditative state, where by doing a certain amount and type of work, it frees your mind to think about whatever.
It may be better described with certain jobs, when you know your job like the back of your hand in a way, so instead of dedicated a lot of your thought to that specific job, you are free to think about whatever. Which, if you are at work for 8 hours, you are forced to come up with something to think about. Day after day, a person has 8 hours dedicated to potentially deep thinking. Thinking about politics, family problems, vacations, what you are going to do this weekend, life’s great mysteries, etc…
A lot of jobs, especially many high paying jobs, can often force you to think about your specific job all day long, and will cell phones and e-mail can even carry over into the night….
Some of my personal best thinking is while working in the shipping department, I have done some deep thinking and soul searching at that shipping desk… When I was more able to, running a line of parts on a machine could also prompted some deep thinking at times, but as time progressed that just came overly stressful for me, but I digress…
I guess I say this, because many people are underestimated in this world… Perhaps they weren’t great at school or something and that might cause a lot of people to write them off. But, often times, they find one of these deep-thinking jobs and become philosophers in their own right and way… with 8 hours or more dedicated deep-thinking time. Many though, never come to think to highly of their own thoughts, because even they wrote themselves off, because perhaps they didn’t follow the traditional path of intelligence. It, is part of the reason, I have always felt average though, everybody always seems smart to me, people all got something to say and things they have thought deeply about.
I sometimes think, there is probably some cleaning lady out there with a few kids that could right one of the best books ever about being a mother. All day, every day at work, she is trying to figure out her kids and help them the best she can. But, perhaps she may never share her knowledge, because she is “just a cleaning lady”.
This can also be handy for someone with writer’s block, or someone trying to figure out their life. Instead of sitting at home where you may have lots of distractions. Try getting one of these types of jobs… go clean dishes or something. At first it may be a little stressful, but eventually you will start to get a thinking sweet spot, where the work is almost happening automatically, and you are thinking about anything and everything else. A good thing to do, may be to look up writing prompts and things before and throughout work… get the brain firing a little bit… But, you are putting your brain in a think or be bored and possibly miserable situation.
Part of what makes those jobs stressful though, can then be… not having things to think about… I used to even start bringing logic puzzle books to work…..
Which that can be helped a bit by a blogger like myself, attempting to fulfill those boring gaps at work, hopefully provoking some deep thoughts to carry you through the day. Radio people, podcasters, newspapers, etc…
I don’t know where I was going with this, I guess giving you something to think about! Also, that you shouldn’t underestimate people!
For me, painting hits the mental sweet spot! Particularly the style of art I do…
I should add I am definitely not trying to rile things up between different types of jobs and who is smarter than who and etc… Just pointing out an observation and thoughts from personal experience. I personally don’t have a highly technical brain in many ways to even perform jobs that require my attention all day long… But, that is a story for another day!
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