INTELLECTUAL FOG
Clear Your Vision
PARTS of northern India get very cold in winter, resulting in thick fog. Trains get held up in the fog or move very slowly. To solve this problem, the Indian Railways have developed a ‘fog-safe device’ and plan to equip more than 2,000 trains with the device. These portable GPS driven anti-fog or fog-safe devices will track in real time the location of the next signal on the train’s route. This will let the driver know exactly how many metres away he is from the signal. This device now enables trains to be driven at high speeds even in dense fog and ensures they reach their destination safely.
While this anti-fog device relates to material fog, there is also something that can be called ‘intellectual fog’ that hampers intellectual development. In ancient times, the means of acquiring knowledge were limited. With the prevalence of print and electronic media it has now become very simple to acquire knowledge. People express themselves through writing and speech, and with new forms of communications and media, the volume and exchange of such expression has increased enormously. The Internet has made it very easy to access information on any subject.
Eliminating the irrelevant from the relevant is critical for success. This ensures that our thinking remains untouched by the intellectual fog that is present all around us.
But there is a problem with this information overload. Despite access to a wealth of material on any subject, many people are unable to decipher a clear understanding of the issues. The information overload has only resulted in a jungle of confusion for them, and it is easy to get trapped in this ‘intellectual fog’. One’s thoughts and actions will then get determined by the ‘thick fog’ that surrounds them.
How do you keep yourself safe from this fog? How do you maintain right thinking in the midst of such intellectual darkness?
The ‘fog-safe device’ that trains use illustrates a solution to this problem. We need to have our own ‘intellectual fog-safe device’. This device is an internally prepared mind trained in the art of differentiation.
For this device to work one should develop the capacity to put aside all unrelated matters and only extract information relevant to the subject. This technique can be called the principle of elimination. Eliminating the irrelevant from the relevant is critical for success. This ensures that our thinking remains untouched by the intellectual fog that is present all around us. In line with the laws of nature, this external fog will never end. All we can do is to develop the skills to stay safe from its negative effects and proceed on our intellectual journey, just as the train moves ahead and reaches its destination in spite of the fog.