Gestalt psychology argues that the best way to think about solving problems is to consider the whole, rather than obsessing too much over specific details. Max Wertheimer suggested that if you are given several different pieces of information, making sense of them can only be achieved by considering them in the round.
Using the information you have, the processes of productive thinking (insight) and reproductive thinking (bringing previous experience to bear on the current situation) will have the best chance of leading to an “ah ha”moment.
Being able to perceive your true status is therefore a deliberate act of will.
Now, without wanting to become too maudlin about it, I think this year’s “ah ha” moment for me has been the realisation that, after all, I am mortal. It doesn’t seem like a huge revelation when I write it down like that, but trust me, it has been.
2014 has brought me some fantastic highs. For example, being given an award by my employers and a trip to Maui, taking a 50th birthday trip to Bruges with some of my oldest friends, going on safari in Botswana and encountering the big five, seeing my youngest daughter graduate and my eldest daughter fly the nest have all been huge highlights. I wouldn’t have missed a minute of them for anything. But the year has been tinged with sadness too – the death of my mother in August and my own mantle cell lymphoma diagnosis in September.
Click to view slideshow.
Death – our own death – is an inbuilt characteristic of our experience as humans. Because we’re only here for a short time, it throws the highs of life into sharp relief and makes them all the more special, all the more important to cherish. But until I’d acknowledged that for myself earlier on this year, I genuinely hadn’t realised quite how important thinking beyond the day to day pressures of life can be. I really should have paid more attention to the Gestaltists.
Fortunately, I think that I’ve realised this in time for it to make some difference!
I’m sure that 2015 will be a challenge, but I sincerely hope that having recognised my own mortality I can continue to live in the moment, rather than in the comfortable imagination of a hypothetical future.
(This post was Inspired partly by the post40blogger’s writing prompt number 22 and partly by my Christmas cold)