When something happens in reality it is ideal if your body reacts automatically because thought is a distraction and secondary. You need to react instantly and thought will only slow you down. For example a year or so ago I was walking down a suburban street and a tree started to fall directly in my path. My body simply reacted but honestly I didn’t know what was happening in my mind. The situation was not clear and I moved in a way that helped me avoid the falling tree. My movements in fact were perfect and happened without thought. My knees bent and I moved a step or two faster, all I could hear was a noise. I didn’t know where the tree was going to fall, I knew nothing of the situation in my mind, I just moved as the situation unfolded.

In fact one leaf touched my head as the tree just missed me. A lady stood opposite me in shock as she saw the situation unfold. She was holding her face in shock. If I had of stopped to think I could have been killed or seriously injured. If I had of panicked and tried to assess the situation I might not be here now writing this. The other day I saw an attractive young couple talking, the male was elaborating something. He used his phone to clarify a point and they were engaged in what to me looked like an intellectual exercise. The young woman seemed to be engaged in understanding the males directed conversation. To me from my limited observations they seemed more focused on thoughts and outcomes dictated by the phone which is an augmentation device.

Sometimes with my younger workmates they will consult their phones to clarify something. To me they seem more intellectually focused and the phone is for clarity. With my training in internal martial arts true understanding comes from the physical realm. The truth is in you and understanding comes with physical practice and not from just thinking about things or trying to create an intellectual understanding. It isn’t to say you can’t have intellectual goals or gain understanding from thinking or reading or whatever. The point I want to make it is secondary to your physical reality. If you were an SAS soldier and dropped into the desert you can’t consult your phone or try to remember every fact as it comes up. You can’t just read a book and expect to survive. Instead you have to react to the situations at hand in a way that is beyond thought. It is in your body first and the mind second.