Depth

I hear this word quite often, and I’ve been using it with increased frequency. Depth is one of those words whose purpose is to communicate something that lies at the edge of human comprehension. For Depth is a word I often state, or some derivative thereof, I’ve been thinking about what I might mean when using it. These are some thoughts on depth of knowledge and deep thinkers.

Depth of Knowledge

Knowledge seems to me built as a thread with finite extension, maybe resembling stacking grains of sand. Knowing a sentence that conveys a certain message does not imply one understands what’s within that message. What can happen, the transcendental status of statements, and their wide spectrum of covered area always escape one’s mind. Depth of knowledge entails knowing how the tree has grown until this cup, its configuration, and why branching created the concept being transmitted. Moreover, it entails understanding this infinite nature of things’ intention.

Deep Thinkers

Thinking feels to me as digging a hole. The mind works by sequential focus. Every time something arises and remains on, our subconscious spins the topic around. It finds unanswered questions, dead ends, presumed linkages, potential corollaries. What I tend to see in deep thinkers is that they seem to have been locked in a cage for years, navigating mental territory, yet mostly with some sort of semantic root in land transited. They’ve considered so many possibilities that what remains is like a group of ideas that have survived on the ring for a long, long, time.

The Common Denominator

Years of questioning, reasoning, and trying to understand is the only feasible approach. Other avenues lack the rigor that’s needed to tackle complex and profound ideas. These are people who have paid the dues and only rarely step outside their solidly grounded body of knowledge, which might even consist just of questions. The two individuals with whom I’ve felt this the strongest with are Fyodor Dostoevsky and Charlie Munger, both certainly differing at their core. And a lately recurrent thought is that the music I get the least tired of listening to, even after 100s-1000s of listens, may be the deepest. The fact that the mind doesn’t get tired of those might mean it's always uncovering new gems.

Personal Commentary

I’ve been lately much more inclined to thinking but without writing. It’s unclear to me whether this is the correct approach or not, but as to what the mind wants to do, I try to give room for. I believe it works as some form of intuition.

As a final and sidenote, I can’t stop thinking about physics and biology. Isaac Newton visits my thinking flow really often. I’ve been finding many of the books and ideas I’d like to pursue over the coming months; most from the 1500s-1800s. Couldn’t be more excited.