Thought, word, and deed. It’s a trio that essentially defines us if we can manage to keep them aligned. Our thoughts are the beginning. We teach ourselves to value important things over trivial ones, to make ourselves into honorable people, to improve ourselves and our world. What we value becomes what we strive for. The “higher” we can elevate our thinking, the higher our focus becomes and the less bogged down in the trivial irritants of life we are. There are a great many philosophies which teach us that our thoughts become our words, our words become our deeds, and taken altogether, they become our character. But as with many well-meaning philosophies, this one seems to have been skewed somewhat by those who like the way it sounds, but who don’t put in the time or effort to understand.
In the practical sense, most people would be best served focusing on just two of the three. While words serve to articulate, communicate, and give form to thoughts, that’s not where most people fall down. It’s the thought and deed parts that seem to be missing most in the world around us today. I have many teachers and friends with whom I converse about this topic a great deal, and some of them upon reading this might suggest that I pause and remember our lessons on the topic - “words” refers to “right speech” and making sure that our words align with both thought and deed. It’s not just talking for the sake of talking that the “thought, word, and deed” philosophy is meant to express. I do understand that, but what I also understand is that a great and vast majority of the people running (ruining?) the world today don’t bother with the details, and so I’ve given a lot of thought to a shortcut.
My appreciation for technology, interconnectedness, the availability of information and the communication made possible by social media is very often eclipsed by my contempt for just how fast and ubiquitous it all makes bad information spread and how thoroughly it allows people to outsource their thinking. In this age of techno-sapiens, everyone has a platform, everyone has access to the world, and nobody has a sense of duty or responsibility to bother learning anything about the topics on which they speak. The act of speaking in front of a camera to the world has been elevated beyond the content of one’s speech to the point that most of the information available in the ether is nonsense. The downside of the mass availability of information is the equal mass availability of really shitty information. This makes it harder than ever to check the quality of one’s own thoughts. When the corpus of human knowledge is so adulterated by intellectual barnyard excrement that we’re seeing a return of believers in such things as “the Earth is flat” and “the Moon Landings were faked,” it signals a need to focus on more dependable methods of reflection. I propose we de-emphasize “words” for a while in our own development and instead focus on the pathway from thought to deed.
I recently had a conversation with a friend of mine. He is a Grammy award-winning musician and singer-songwriter who has been quietly at the forefront of what I will simply call “the good fight.” Whether it’s Afghanistan or Ukraine or Israel, he is always on the side of right, and he never hesitates to throw his full influence and reputation into the fray. His courage on this front is especially noteworthy when you consider the line of work he’s in, and the people who have the most influence there. He sent me a preview of his latest song, one the media has dubbed a “protest song,” about the atrocities committed on October 7th by Hamas in Israel. As ever, he’s using his stage and his talents to do all he can on the right side of things. Listening to the song and watching the video, I found myself in a really terrible internal battle. Seeing the scope of the madness gripping our world, watching the “protestors” supporting Hamas all over the globe, seeing elected US Representatives dodge questions about their support for Hamas in front of news cameras snapped into sharp focus just how big the problem has become. I responded to him: “I wish I had the money, the influence, the authority to do something more meaningful. Everywhere I look, it’s more of the same from the same cast of characters. I’ve always tried, and I will always try, but sometimes it really feels like we’re trying to kick water up a hill.” I have always tried. I’ve made it a lifelong habit to go where there is suffering and try to ease it in whatever ways I can. I’ve gone where there was war and tried my level best to contribute on the side of right. I try hard to pay attention at home and do the things that a father, husband, brother, son, provider and friend ought to do for those around him. I’ve tried very hard to make sure my vocation aligns with this ideal as well, engaging with lawmakers and officials to try and shape policy for the better where my influence allows. Despite all that, one of my greatest frustrations is not being able to do more. And I’d be lying if I said it didn’t frustrate me to the ends of the Earth that more good people aren’t as mad about it as I am. So what can we do about it?
I have a radical idea. If you’re someone who reads this Journal and actually thinks about the sorts of things I’ve discussed here, spend one solid concentrated month on the act of Doing without Saying. Forget talking about what you’re doing - just act. Pick a problem in the world and take some kind of action to make an impact on it. No posts on social media, at least not at first, no conversations with friends, just spend some time thinking about where you might be able to have a positive impact and then go out and do it without any hesitation at all. Thought —> Deed. It’s the “doing” that makes it real. The act itself, the doing of the thing and the impact it creates, outweighs all the talk in the world, especially right now. Social media and all of the various platforms out there were built to let people shout and preach and virtue signal - talking allows them to seem like whatever they want, and without any of the work involved in making it happen. For the next month, let’s make that part less important. Do rather than discuss. Be rather than seem. I wonder what might happen if even just a small handful of free-thinking people took it upon themselves to do this. What’s say let’s find out?