One of my favorite scenes in a musical comedy appears in The Music Man. The scene comes near the end of the show when the flimflamming traveling salesmen, Professor Harold Hill, is confronted by the townspeople of River City, Iowa to make good on his promise to deliver a boys marching band. For days Hill has evaded questions about his musical credentials, saying only that he uses something called the “Think System” of teaching music. Now, under threat of being tarred and feathered and run out of town, the professor faces his moment of reckoning.


While everyone is assembled in the high school auditorium to pass judgment on the handcuffed Professor Hill, in comes the town's boys with their shiny new instruments and spiffy uniforms. On their own, we learn, they've been practicing The Think System. With no other recourse, Professor Hill is forced to conduct the band right there on the spot and prove that his system works.

The boys take up their instruments. The Professor nervously takes up his baton. Eyes roll and breaths are held.

“Now think, men. Think!,” he implores.

Straining every corpuscle in their tone-deaf craniums, the boys attempt to play a few notes of "Minuet in G." The result is mostly noise. The Professor appears doomed.

But wait! Somewhere in the cacophony a tune begins to emerge. It gets stronger as the boys think harder and harder. Like spontaneous combustion, the minuet bursts forth in a blazing validation of The Think System and the River City Boys Band is born. Roll over, Beethoven. It's a miracle.

A journalist once asked the famous missionary and physician Dr. Albert Schweitzer what he thought the main problem was with most people. His answer was, "They don't think." 

OK, I'm not positive that conversation took place. And if it did, I'm not even sure if it was Albert Schweitzer. It may have been Albert Einstein. Or Al Roker. But my point is that most people just don't have the mental gumption of the River City Boys Band. Thinking is something we turn to as a last resort. 

And yet another great mind, George Bernard Shaw, when asked the secret of his success, replied that he just forced himself to think real hard for several minutes every day. By doing that, he claimed, he was able to achieve far more than the average person and he didn't have to toil nearly as long. 

As Shaw understood, thinking is no doubt the hardest thing one ever has to do. Nothing in this world, after all, existed before someone thought of it. Thought is the creator of everything, not just the River City Boys Band. Some theologians even suggest that Infinite Thought created the universe. So we're dealing with a pretty “heady” force here.

Since thought is so powerful I'm wondering today why more people don't engage in it. If as a society we collectively really thought for one minute a day about the issues that confront us, why couldn't we solve some of the world's problems? OK, perhaps eliminating world hunger and war will require a more sound method than The Think System, but at least it would be a start. So why don't we try it?

The problem is, society as a rule does not reward thinking. We live in a dumbed-down world. From diarrhea-mouthed talk-television to books that serve up chicken bouillon for the soul and movable feasts of cheese, nothing much is expected of us. There is always someone who is ready and eager do our thinking for us, whether it's the boss, the church, CNN or Madison Avenue. Everything from what to eat to what to wear is nicely catalogued, indexed and hyped. We've been conditioned to believe that choosing between the café latte and the cappuccino is a momentous decision. For many folks, thinking is the brain sprain that results from picking one from column A and one from column B. 

Thinking is left by most for the “smart” people to do. And that's where we get it wrong. There is a big difference, in my opinion, between being smart and being able to think. If you don't believe me, just tune into one of the more “intelligent” television quiz shows like Jeopardy! or Who Wants To Be a Millionaire? Here you will find lots of smart people.

But can they think? What earthly difference does it make if someone knows, for example, that Mark Twain's real name was Samuel Clemens or that he grew up in Hannibal, Missouri? Most of those smart contestants never even read Tom Sawyer, let alone Life on the Mississippi. With rare exceptions, you just know they have no personal experience of the data stored in their heads. They are reacting to cerebral stimuli, the same as my dog reacts (sometimes) to a command to sit.

What's the point of knowing something if you have no knowledge of it? Well, the scam is that if someone holds in his possession loads of information, he will probably convince you that he's a well-rounded and incredibly interesting person. You might even infer that he's been to all the places and experienced all the things he knows all about. At the very least you'll assume he's read and studied about them enough to be an expert. And the rest of us dumb schmucks should be impressed. I gotta tell ya, at least my Manhattan mutt has walked the streets of Hannibal. I'm more impressed by that.

Yes, thinking is a miracle. It's a miracle because it rarely happens. What we have instead is an assortment of pseudo-thinking systems. Pseudo Think is often fantastically impressive, especially in its less evolved forms where a lot of activity—either physical or mental—is exerted. You see, there is a hierarchy of pseudo thinking, much like there is in the martial arts. One starts out as a white belt—all grunts and strains in an attempt to master the basics. Eventually, if you don't give up, you become a black belt pseudo-thinker and command the respect of all.

White belt pseudo-thinkers usually begin with Insanity Thinking, also known as “The Little Engine that Could” Thinking. This is a favorite of mine because it is so comfortable in its application. You just keep trying and trying and trying—“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” You don't have to do anything different than you did the last time. You're always late to work? No problem. Just keep rushing around at top speed every morning and eventually you'll get there on time. Don't ever consider getting up fifteen minutes earlier. Insanity Thinking is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

Next is Trial and Error Thinking. I also like to refer to this as, “Houston, We've Got a Problem” Thinking because something usually needs to be fixed. It may not be broken, but it still needs to be fixed. This marks a step up in the neurological workout ladder because—just the opposite of Insanity Thinking—it requires you to actually do something different. Many, many, many times.

For example, if your car stalls, first open the hood and look at the motor. Then close the hood and see if it will now start. If it still won't start, try opening the hood again while a friend attempts to start the engine. If that doesn't work, change places with your friend. As you can readily see, this process can be carried on indefinitely. The point is to avoid analyzing the problem. Just because you tried to drive from Kansas City to Boston on one tank of gas is no reason to check the fuel gauge.

Another pseudo think system belongs to a self-described esoteric group of people who practice Meditative Thinking, or “When the Spirit Moves Me” Thinking. Actually, this type of thinking goes back millennia and has gotten a bad rap in recent decades. Originally this was the sole domain of sages and other enlightened men and women. These people drew upon inspiration or divine interference for their wisdom. All they had to do was climb to the top of a mountain or sit quietly in a cave for a few years.

These thinkers became known as some of the greatest minds in history. And for centuries their techniques were improved upon by Johnny-come-lately scientists and inventors like Isaac Newton and Henry Ford. These new boys discovered they could achieve the same results by just sitting under a tree and waiting for an apple to fall on their head or by watching slaughtered cattle roll by in a meat packing plant. Unfortunately, today's meditative thinker—wanting for time and patience—thinks he can do the same thing. The problem is, he does it while on the toilet with a copy of The Wall Street Journal.

And then there is Mind Reading Thinking—MRT. This type of thinking has been perpetuated by self-proclaimed gurus who sell everything from books on interpreting body language to Neuro-linguistic Programming courses. The whole point of MRT is to get ahead in life by reading the minds of everyone from your boss to the cutie in the next cubicle. Forget about actually engaging someone in a conversation to learn more about how he thinks or feels. Interpersonal communication is anathema to Mind Reading Thinking.

Multiple Choice Thinking—or "Game Show" Thinking—relies solely upon the thinker having accumulated a bunch of facts about a particular subject or subjects. Like Imelda Marcos' shoes, most of them will never get to be used. But then, you just never know when one of those little nuggets of information might come in handy. And what a hit it makes if you do finally get a chance to trot one out.

The modus operandi of Multiple Choice Thinkers is to solve a problem based on a set of pre-defined “answer parameters.” Hence, the more answers you have in your arsenal, the more likely you are to have one that fits the puzzle. Like contestants on the old TV game show, Family Feud, the object is to reach into your bag of knowledge and come up with a “good answer.”

The problem is, life's not a game of Trivial Pursuit. Multiple ChoiceThinking still limits you to only the possibilities being presented. Just because you're the boss, for example, and you have legions of fact finders at your disposal doesn't mean you're always getting the RIGHT facts. Get it? Bzzzz! Thank you for playing. 

Nothing New Under the Sun Thinking. You may also hear this referred to as "Reincarnation" Thinking, "Renovation" Thinking or "Steal Shamelessly" Thinking. The object here is to take an idea that has proven itself successful in the past. Then copy it—adding a new wrinkle or two—and bring it out again as an original idea. If you are careful enough in disguising the original source some people might even think you're a friggin' genius.

You observe this kind of thinking all the time in the business world. Take the fashion industry, for example. One guy comes out with an original design that sells for thousands of dollars and the next thing you know the “same” dress is in every K-Mart across the country. Or what about the movies? Hell, now there's an industry where they don't even bother to steal from their competition. Why should they when they can steal from themselves? If you're in the movie industry and you have a successful film all you have to do is change it twenty percent and stick a II, III or a MCXVII after the title and you're back in business.

But my favorite Nothing New Under the Sun thinkers can be found on the shelves of the business and self-improvement sections of your local bookstore. Here you will encounter the thinking of those who have virtually nothing new to say. Have you noticed that? Just take a look next time you're in Barnes & Noble. Pick up almost any one of those books and if you're over 28 years old you've heard it all before—many, many times. Granted, one guy may say it better than another and his book may be easier to read or more useful. But we're talking about quality of thinking here. I don't know about you, but I stopped paying $25 for books that only deliver $4.75 worth of new thoughts years ago. Stick with quality fiction. You'll learn more.

Let Someone Else Figure It Out Thinking. Now we've almost come full circle. You're almost a black belt. You gotta love it! This person practices "No Thinking at All" Thinking. He's just totally above it all. He's a very busy man, after all. So busy that he's never in one place for more than a few minutes at a time. Therefore he's a great delegator. Always on the phone or dashing from one meeting to another, he is propped up by legions of proxy thinkers—speech writers, policy makers, PR handlers, lawyers, consultants, and, of course, his executive asssistant.

How can he possibly have time to do something as mundane as think? He's too busy running the goddam company (or country) for chrissake. But one thing you can count on. He'll take all the credit for any thinking you do.

As you can see, the old EEG needle gets pushed to the limit in even the most mindless form of pseudo think. And that's just the problem. Thinking is not a function of the brain. It's a function of the mind. Using your brain is no more related to thinking than using your hands or your back. When's the last time you ever heard of someone being hired because of his mind? No, we are hired because we are smart. We're intelligent. Companies want people with brains. They want people who can brain-STORM. If they can't, they are considered brain-DEAD. 

Sure, brains get things done. Brains beget activity. But what are we working so hard at? People with brains often make mindless things happen. People with minds, on the other hand, are frequently considered trouble makers. They rock the boat. They have silly and dangerous ideas. They think “outside the box,” which is to say they think at all.

It's no secret that many, if not most, of the great thinkers throughout history have paid dearly for their thoughts. But inevitably they are proven correct. The world is not flat. The sun does not circle the earth. The race is not to the swift.

Think about that.