An emotional crisis due to an unfortunately disastrous extended family gathering, which was supposed to be celebratory and joyful, prompted us to refocus our energy, reevaluate our priorities, redefine our life direction and reaffirm our core moral values. As a couple, my husband and I have had to weather many emotional and social storms and tempests throughout the course of our marriage that has lasted over 20 years. The truth is that we do NOT want to live mediocre lives and to have a mediocre marriage as well as to raise average children. Both my husband and I are aspiring individuals with high aims and soaring dreams for ourselves and for our children. We thus want to do our best physically, mentally and spiritually in order to live the most meaningful and joyful life together. In such crucial moments when we have had to dig deep and search our souls for meanings so as to revitalize ourselves and our marriage, we turn to God and philosophy, or the sages’ guidance through the ages.
Human beings are thinking beings
My husband, our children and I, we don’t want to have a mediocre existence and have decided to heed the insights and advice of the sages through the ages in order that we could lead optimal lives as individuals and as a family. Philosophers admonish us to think deeply and reflect on our lives, specifically the means, meanings and purposes of our existence here on earth. Human beings are thinking beings, and we must utilize this miraculous cognitive and intellectual tool to produce the most economical, social, emotional and spiritual benefits not just to benefit ourselves but also the human race. Our thinking and reasoning faculties are what elevate us as a species above other biological and physiological beings. Like us, members of the plant and animal kingdom breathe, eat, communicate, multiply and generally try to survive and adapt to their environments. However, unlike humans, plants and animals do not compose symphonies and poetry, play musical instruments, build cathedrals and complex machines, make movies as well as try to uncover the secrets of nature through scientific inquires and discoveries. Although plants and animals communicate in various ways, they are not capable of reasoning about moral values or of arguing about how to live a good life as humans do. Christians would say the divine sparks in humans is owing to our having been created in God’s image. Atheists would say our unique intellectual capabilities have been randomly generated from chance and randomness in the universe. I would be inclined towards the Christian view because humans are not just intellectual but also spiritual, and our soul has always inquired about God, or a divine existence, ever since we started using our cognitive abilities. It is as if the innate quest to know and communicate with God has been implanted in, or programed into, us by our Creator.
How to think
We know that we need to think to function optimally, but do we know how to think? What are some useful methods or reference points for processing abstract thoughts? If thinking is innate, are the correct and helpful ways to do so also inborn in us? The first system of thinking tools that comes to mind is culture. In a traditional society like Vietnam, culture provides an imposed, top-down structure in which children and young people are taught to behave in a rigidly prescribed manner. In such societies, conventional ways of thinking are severely enforced, so deviations from the behavior norms are usually punished. Growing up, I was never taught to think independently and critically in the family network and in the formal education system. I was born and raised in a Confucius society heavy-laden with numerous cultural customs and conventions. I remember that adults would place great emphasis on children learning to address their superiors properly and to obey implicitly those seniors in age and especially those in authority. Vietnam was already united under a Communist regime when I was born in 1980, so at school the so-called educators would try to inculcate us with socialist political values alongside other traditional Vietnamese ones. Those ideas were presented as facts to be learned by heart. I always rebelled inwardly against such systematic efforts of mind control and brainwashing coming from the Communist government and the formal education system. I yearned to learn how to think for myself. As to the traditional customs rigidly adhered to by my parents and strictly enforced in my family, I did not think those thinking and behaving standards offered people creative solutions to their problems. They are not meant to; they are meant to offer conformity and cohesiveness in a highly collective culture.
David and Lam 