The Wisdom of the Tortoise: Why Deep Thinking Takes Time

‘All politicians are liars!’

When you read this, what thoughts immediately come to mind?

Maybe you find yourself saying, ‘Absolutely- just look at all the broken promises’ or ‘This is why I don’t vote.’ Or perhaps you think the statement is too sweeping, ‘That’s such a lazy generalisation.’

Alternatively, you might ask questions of it:

• ‘Do politicians lie more than people in other professions?’
• ‘How often does someone have to lie to be called a liar?’
• ‘Do politicians ever lie for good reasons?’

The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates thought it is only when we ask questions that we are truly thinking.

He said, ‘Thinking is…the talk that the soul goes through with itself about the things it is considering…But the soul appears to me, when it thinks, to be doing nothing but having a conversation, asking questions of itself and answering them, asserting and denying.’

For Socrates, questioning just IS thinking.

I’m not sure I would go that far, but I think Socrates has a point here.

Since our inner monologue is silent, it’s easy to delude ourselves that we are thinking when we are merely reacting. Quickly agreeing or disagreeing is like this. It doesn’t require thoughtful engagement, only memory to check what we already believe.

Questions, on the other hand, open us up to a more active and generative mode of thinking. When we ask questions, we suspend judgment to consider what something means and examine it more closely. ?

Instead of saying that questioning is the same as thinking, perhaps we should say:

Questioning is thinking in slow motion.

When we ask questions, we slow our thinking down so we can check all the steps along the way, consider multiple perspectives, and reach a more considered judgment. ?

Remember the story of the Tortoise and the Hare? In the story, the Hare and Tortoise race each other to the finish line. At the start the Hare quickly sprints ahead because of his superior speed, while the Tortoise plods along. However, once the Hare is out of sight, he quickly decides that the Tortoise will not catch up, so he lies down to take a rest and soon falls asleep. Meanwhile, the Tortoise continues to slowly make his way toward the finish line, eventually overtaking the Hare to win.

The moral of the story is ‘slow and steady wins the race’.

The same is true of thinking too.

When we think quickly, we get overconfident just like the Hare in the story. We reach a judgment and think to ourselves- that’s it! It’s settled- I know the answer, so I don’t need to think any more. I can rest my mind (just like the Hare rested his body).

By contrast, asking questions means admitting to ourselves that we don’t already know something. When we ask questions, it takes longer to reach judgments but there is no danger of overconfidence- we are humble enough to concede our own ignorance.

Going slow also allows us to avoid other dangers with going too fast.

When we rush, we tend to make more mistakes- we trip up, if you will. We also take more wrong turns- we don’t carefully examine every step along our path and take time to consider other routes we might go down. ?

The US President Theodore Roosevelt once said that ‘Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.’

I find it bizarre that so many people accept this truth when it comes to physical effort and what else passes for ‘hard work’- but not when it comes to thinking. We admire people who work hard in sports, business, or the arts, understanding that mastery takes time, patience, and struggle.

And yet, when it comes to thinking, we live in a world that is obsessed with speed. We want instant soundbites, fast and easy answers (perhaps through Google or ChatGPT) and quick results (to satisfy our KPIs). ?We glorify the Hares, and not the Tortoises, of this world.?

But why do we expect valuable thoughts to come easily when nothing else of value ever does?

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