About the title: The Everyday Thinker

Everyone thinks. All the time. Just like breathing. It’s not something we turn off or on. But “critical breathing” sounds ridiculous in comparison. I suppose the difference is that we have some control over what we think. Our control is limited, because thoughts can be reckless and intrusive, but we have some agency over our thinking process. Critical thinking, for the everyday thinker, refers to using or practicing the agency we have on our thoughts. It refers to the more active forms of our thinking.

Thinking every day is as important as breathing every day. Thinking has as much impact on our emotional and mental wellbeing as breathing does on our physical wellbeing. Most of what we think and feel is imposed on us by external forces we can’t control. This makes it all the more important to leverage our agency as much as we can. We are defined by our choices and actions. Deliberate thought unlocks our agency, and it’s a skill that can be studied and practiced just like any other.

Thinking about thinking is exhausting. I know because I do this all the time and it wears me out. The everyday thinker doesn’t have to be a philosopher. We use math and physics every day, but that doesn’t make us mathematicians and physicists.

I also believe that philosophy has to be practical in order to be meaningful. It’s not enough for its ideas to have a passive meaning in a book or a classroom, they have to have an active meaning in our everyday life. The Everyday Thinker is someone who’s curious on purpose, for purpose, and of purpose.