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Essay: Synthesize for a Change

I’m with a group of friends and notice how I enter every conversation by taking it apart, by asking for more details, more evidence. It’s called “critical thinking” and I learned it years ago in school, a very important skill that helps us analyze facts in order to make judgments.

Our minds are good at this, good at figuring out what’s wrong, what’s missing, what won’t work.

And we use these skills constantly to make big decisions and small ones, to pick a life partner or a bag of chips.

Recently, however, I read a statement by novelist Fay Weldon who said, “Synthesize as much as you analyze.” That stopped me for a minute. Made me wonder if I work as hard to put the pieces back together as I do to take them apart. Made me yearn for fewer fragments and more wholeness.

So, maybe along with critical thinking, we need some critical re-thinking, re-building, re-pairing.

I can see that you and I disagree in many ways but beyond that, I believe in friendship, in the value of sharing ideas, the value of sharing a life.

Can we synthesize for a while and see where that goes?

Karen Anderson contributes "Essays by Karen Anderson" to Interlochen Public Radio.