Take a breath and take stock

摘要

In the pre-lockdown days of dinner parties, one of the books that often cropped up in debate was Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow. At its heart is the notion that we have different ways of using our brains: we have instinctive reactions based more on prejudice and a slower mode of reasoning based on logic. Too often, it is argued, our innate desire to conserve mental energy leads us to rely on the former, often to our own cost. But what exactly might thinking slow mean for readers of The MJ? Perhaps a good starting point is a degree of humility: admitting that we neither fully know what is going on at the moment nor what to do about it. Absolved of the need for omnipotence we can start to grapple with the vitally important task of assembling what we do know, analysing and acting on it. Secondly, if the present isn't clear, the future is even less so, making it all the more important that our critical faculties are fully employed on the task of using what we do know to plan a way forward.