thinking about thinking

Intellectuals and public figures deemed intelligent have spent plenty of time thinking. By this I mean left brain theorising, introspecting and imagining. More often than not this has been at the expense of thinking about the place of thinking in our lives. Professional 'thinkers' naturally rate the activity highly, so highly that we seldom see them place thinking alongside other human activities: working, eating, walking, talking- all of which can be done with very little theorising and introspecting. Paradoxically it is the 'less intelligent' (inclined to be more right brained perhaps) who first encounter the limits of thinking, its strengths and weakpoints. They learn that living supplies answers if you are patient- 'thinking things through' is not some activity like solving a rubic's cube; it is more like a careful stating of how things are and then giving yourself time to appreciate any answers that arrive. Take the left brain's insistance that we are born alone and die alone. The right side of the brain (or whatever it is that acts like the right side of the brain) tells us that no one is alone- unless they are so hostage to the left brain that they 'think' they are. No one's life is meaningless or random unless they 'think' it is; where does this 'thinking' start? In books by thinkers and in conversations with people who either think too much or don't think at all. As Francis Bacon wrote, "It is true, that a little philosophy inclineth man’s mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men’s minds about to religion."