There is a wonderful book by George Steiner that a friend gave me a few years ago. It is fascinating and yet, as the title suggests, it made me incredibly depressed: “Why thinking makes you sad”. Even though I have changed and grown a lot over the past few years, I would probably have described myself as a “thinker” for many years of my life and (smart) thinking determined, and still determines, a large part of my identity. You can probably guess from this introduction that what George Steiner is getting at is not good news for intellectuals – and as such we have always suspected it …
But why, in George Steiner’s opinion, does thinking make people sad? And what conclusions can be drawn from this?
In his essay, he has formulated 10 possible reasons:
- Thinking is infinite and therefore endless
We can think everything, and yet a ‘theory of everything’ lies outside and beyond human comprehension. Thinking is endless and can construct a multitude of universes, with scientific laws and parameters that are completely different from ours. The number of alternative solutions is immeasurable. There is no, there can be no verified proof for one or the other. The infinity of thought is therefore also an “incomplete infinity” that is subject to an irresolvable contradiction. We will never know what is true or what the totality of “reality” is. On decisive fronts, we do not arrive at satisfactory, let alone conclusive, answers despite all our thinking. This inner contradiction underlies all thinking. The frustration of doubt remains. - Thinking is uncontrolled and random
It continues even in our sleep and we rarely control it. It can arise from somatic and psychosomatic depths that elude any kind of introspection. At the same time, it is subject to the potential disruption of internal and external influences that interrupt, distract, change and confuse its linear development. An ongoing discontinuity. By far the greatest extent of remembering and forgetting takes place at the blurred edges of deliberate thinking. Is it really possible to think “straight”? Only rarely do we succeed at the cost of absolute concentration. Such clarity is reserved for only a few, and only for a short time. This absolute concentration often leads to temporary exhaustion, but sometimes also to a mental breakdown. It is therefore possible that the noise of ordinary thinking also has a kind of protective function. In the vast majority of cases, ordinary thinking is therefore a disorganised, dilettantish undertaking. - Thinking is deeply intimate, but at the same time absolutely ordinary, worn out and repetitive
While thinking we are present to ourselves. Thinking about ourselves is an essential part of our identity. I can’t think that I’m not. The extinction of thought is tautologically that of the ego. At the same time, nothing and nobody can see through my thinking or read my thoughts in a verifiable way. I can hide my thoughts completely. Even torture can’t get them out of me beyond doubt. No one else can think my thoughts instead of me. Thoughts are our only secure asset. They make up our nature, our being with ourselves or our alienation from ourselves. The pressure inherent in them is such that at times we endeavour to hide them from ourselves or silence them. The consequence of this is that no amount of closeness (emotional, sexual, ideological, spatial, etc.) will enable us to decipher another person’s thoughts beyond doubt. At the same time, the ability to lie, to invent and perform fictions is an important part of our humanity. This is accompanied by the following paradox: this inaccessible core of our uniqueness, this innermost, most private, most closed of all possessions is at the same time a commonplace a billion times over. Our thoughts are universal to an overwhelming extent and are now, sooner or later, thought millions of times by others – infinitely banal and worn out, even in the most individual and intimate moments of our existence. All of this is an inevitable consequence of language and its limitations. We are born into a linguistic matrix that we all share. The words we use internally and externally to convey our thinking are repetitive and limited, and democratise intimacy. It follows that real originality in thought, that the very first thinking of a thought, is extremely rare. It is often the wording, not the content, that creates the impression of novelty. The force and shock caused by the expression may be considerable, but there is absolutely no evidence that this thought has never circulated before. With appropriate reverence, Einstein stated that he only had two authentic ideas in his entire life. Accordingly, “originality” is often merely a variation or renewal of what already exists. Thinking is our property to the highest degree, hidden in the deepest core of our being, but at the same time the most ordinary, worn-out and repetitive of all actions. This contradiction is impossible to resolve. - Thinking never leads to a single truth
As we have seen, there can be no definitive verification of truth or misconception, or sincerity or insincerity in subjective thinking. Unfortunately, the same also applies to the quest for objective truth in public, systematic thinking. Even the experimentally provable and empirically applicable truths of science are based on theoretical or philosophical assumptions that can be revised or falsified at any time. Wherever thinking aims at “truth”, it relativises this criteria as soon as it is pointed out. “Truth” refuses definitive proof. At its best, thinking generates what Wallace Stevens called “the most noble fiction”. Our language also runs counter to the monochrome ideal of “truth” and is always ambiguous and polyphonic. It constantly endeavours to take control of thinking. We invent the past and dream up the future. And express them through language. But all these thought experiments always remain fiction. And no matter how hard we try to think and how objective our choice of language, there can be no one truth. - Thinking is lavish and bulimic
Thinking is unbelievably excessive, a waste in its worst form. We can measure the energy required and are often exhausted after prolonged concentration. What’s more, the brain is responsible for a large part of our energy consumption. At the same time, thought processes, be they conscious or unconscious, spoken or unspoken, are overwhelmingly diffuse, aimless, scattered and unobserved. They are “everywhere”, which is expressed in phrases such as “being headless”, “losing one’s head”. No other human activity is likely to be so wasteful. Almost the entire mass of thoughts flit past us incessantly, formless, helpless. Brain researchers assume that we think around 60,000-70,000 thoughts every day. Of which 90% are completely repetitive. These thoughts saturate our consciousness, and presumably also our subconscious, and yet they fade away. What we were thinking about an hour ago may not have left any traces at all. The mass of human thought disappears unnoticed. The same applies to our dreams. And when you think you have dreamed or thought up a “brilliant thought”, it is gone again the next moment, suddenly no longer accessible, erased, like millions and millions of other thoughts that flood through us in unfathomable waste. This raises the question of how many great insights are lost in the indifferent flood of unheeded thought, in the unheard or overheard soliloquy of daily and nightly brain emissions? The loss is excessive. - Thinking is unmediated, limited and has no direct influence on events outside itself
The vast majority of habitual actions and gestures are performed “thoughtlessly”. They come about intuitively or by means of acquired control of the autonomic nervous system (sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system). However, even where an action is very carefully and consciously “thought through”, the connection can only be inferred. The interjections between thought and action are as varied as life itself. That there is a gap between conception and realisation is a commonplace of endless defeats that we lament. “I can’t put it into words” or “The work can’t fully express what I imagined.” Brief understandings and methaphoric flashes swing against the edge of language and fade back out of reach. Even an extremely carefully calibrated and focussed movement of thought will only be imperfectly “embodied”, is merely a compromise of the “ideal”, a fiction of the absolute. The idea of perfection is an unrealisable dream of thought, a conceptual abstraction, similar to the infinite. Thus all our futures, projections and plans – whether routine or utopian – carry the possibility of disappointment. The virus of unrealisability nests in hope. It may seem as if all probability is on our side, but there can never be a guarantee. Most of the time, the outcome falls short of our hopes. We hope, against the odds. What a disappointment. - Thinking is unstoppable and yet unproductive
There are two processes that humans cannot stop during their lifetime: Breathing and thinking. Most people can hold their breath longer than they can stop thinking (if this is even possible). This inability to stop thinking or to take a break from thinking is a frightening compulsion. In every moment of our lives, we inhabit the world through our thinking. In the sense of Kant or radical constructivism, our thinking creates our subjective “reality” – “truth”, however it may be constituted, remains inaccessible. It eludes any provable, secure access and may at most amount to a collective hallucination, a shared dream. As a consequence, even the most inventive, comprehensive and talented mind operates within boundaries that cannot be truly defined, let alone measured.As a consequence, even the most inventive, comprehensive and talented mind operates within boundaries that cannot be truly defined, let alone measured. But how can we determine the correctness of our boldest assumptions? What evidence do we have that the progress of empirical investigations and theoretical constructs is unlimited? How much of our proud science is not just as much fiction? Thinking probably conceals more than it reveals. - Thinking is opaque and creates loneliness
Its opacity makes it impossible to know beyond doubt what another human being is thinking. We pay too little attention to this monstrosity. It should make us cringe. Neither questions, nor hypnosis, nor drugs are able to elicit the thoughts of another in any verifiable way. Confessions and statements may be made with sincere intentions or resolute revelations or fragments of honest self-disclosure, but can equally be lies, half-truths or self-deception. The range of insincerity is inexhaustible. The simple question “What are you thinking about?” triggers answers that are multi-layered and may have passed through complex filters unnoticed. Even in moments of greatest intimacy – and probably the most painfully felt – the lover cannot grasp the thoughts of the beloved. We will never know what deeply hidden inattention, absence, aversion or alternative imagination accompanies the erotic experience. Even the closest, most sincere people always remain strangers to each other in a certain way, more or less unexplained. We are most legible in moments of spontaneous emotional expression. This is where our nature lies bare. But this opening up to the world is only short-lived. Ultimately, thinking can turn us into strangers to each other. The most intense love is a never-ending conversation between lonely people. - Thinking is deeply democratic and yet not socially just
Everyone is a thinker. The imbecile, like the genius. The most brilliant thoughts may have been thought by anyone at any time and in any place without having had any consequences. Only a fraction of our thoughts survive and bear fruit. So are we even allowed to categorise this mental chatter with the same sloppy definition (“thinking”) as Einstein’s theory of relativity? We help ourselves by distinguishing the “great thoughts” of intellectual, artistic or political geniuses from the insignificant thoughts of everyday life. Or the “deep thoughts” from the trivial and superficial ones. So we all think all the time, but the ability to think thoughts that are worth thinking – let alone worth expressing and retaining – seems rather rare. An identical label thus obscures the difference, measured in light years, between the noise of banal thoughts, which is inherent to all human existence, and the marvellous complexity and power of extraordinary thought. And one can also ask oneself whether this kind of thinking is desirable at all? Because intellectual passion and its manifestations frequently lead to envy, hatred and ridicule. “Big thoughts” are therefore not met with favour per se. And the question also arises as to whether such thinking can be learnt by everyone? So is there an educational key to creativity? The “ingredients” can certainly be learnt, but genius knows no democracy. Only fruitful injustice and a life-threatening burden. There are those few, as Hölderlein says, who are forced to catch lightning with their bare hands. This disparity between great thinking or great creative power and the ideals of social justice cannot be resolved. - Thinking remains self-sufficient and cannot answer the most essential questions
Do we have to think about something, or can we just think? So does thinking need an object, or is thinking autonomous in the sense that we can completely comprehend and capture what we conceive at certain levels of unhindered focussing? So can we think of nothingness, the essence of being or the origin of human life? Of course, this also includes death, which offers a different interpretation of nothingness. This emptiness, this nothingness, is “unthinkable” for most of us – both in the emotional and logical sense of the word. Even in its constant movement and activity, human thought seems to avoid the void, the black hole of nothingness. At the same time, however, the enigma of human identity, or our presence in any kind of world, occupies our thoughts throughout our lives. And yet it remains an overwhelming fact that no matter how intense thinking may be, no matter how many leaps it makes across the abysses of the unknown, no matter how great its talent for communication and symbolic representation, it does not come any closer to grasping the origin of all being. We are no closer to a verifiable solution to the riddle of our existence, its nature and its purpose (if it exists at all), we are no closer to an answer to the question of whether death is final or not, whether God exists or not. In the end, all this thinking leads nowhere. No evidence can be derived from this. The only conclusion: anything is possible. The verifiability and falsifiability of science and its triumphant progress are the reason for its growing power in our culture. At the same time, they also characterise their self-important triviality. Science cannot answer the essential questions that occupy or should occupy the human mind. The mastery of thought elevates humans above all other living beings, but makes them strangers to themselves and to the enormity of the world.
So much for George Steiner’s essay and the identified reasons for a possible melancholy that can be inherent in thinking. I have to admit that reading it fascinated me, and yet somehow left me feeling somewhat disturbed. We pride ourselves so much for our thinking and our intellect. As humans, we have tried to subjugate the world with our intellect. And seem to have failed miserably. We have prioritised thinking over intuition and feeling, often unlearned the latter in the process. Only to be made aware in the end – and thus gaining an awareness – of how limited this “thinking” we have heroised actually is.
That left me sad at first and this melancholy is still evident to me today as I write this post. But in the end it remains the same: ” Consciousness is the beginning of everything!” And this consciousness can help us to keep checking where thinking actually helps us and takes us further, and where we should use or (re)learn other skills.
Note: The summary of George Steiner’s essay uses passages from the original text in many places. Accordingly, to keep the text flowing, it makes no sense to mark the quotations© Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main, 2006
