Colour Coded. Still Confused.
Seng T'san said this in the 6th century and I've been thinking about it.
Which is probably the problem.
"If you work on your mind with your mind, how can you avoid an immense confusion?"
He was a Zen monk. Third Patriarch. 6th century China. And in one sentence he described every pros and cons list ever made at 2am. Every time we've said I just need to think this through and emerged three hours later, more tangled than when we started.
The instrument of examination is the same as the thing being examined.
Which means the confused mind, tasked with sorting out its own confusion, will produce — with great dedication and considerable effort — more confusion.
Tidily organised. Colour coded, even. Still confusion.
The Zen answer is to stop. Not to think better. Not to think harder. Not to find the right framework or the right question.
Just. Stop.
The clarity isn't at the end of more thinking. It's in the gap between thoughts. The moment you put the phone down. The walk you didn't plan. The cup of tea you made without an agenda.
The mind sorts itself out when you stop asking it to sort itself out.
I'm still making the spreadsheet.