A Square In Flatland Analysis

The human concept of reality primarily focuses on what a person sees around them and what they believe they understand. The three concepts that attach themselves to this belief system is thinking, knowing, and finally being. As I journeyed through these concepts I began to see that it is not a simple idea to truly understand reality and my place within it, rather it flows more from the interconnectedness of these three concepts. Once I grasped the individual concepts and began the path towards the full realization of potentiality that these represented I started understanding A. Square in Flatland when he proclaimed “I looked below, and saw with my physical eye all that domestic individuality which I hitherto merely inferred with the understanding.

This is much different that the calculative growth where knowledge grows in so far as what is already known. Where calculative growth fails contemplative thought allows a person to go beyond the known and see the potentiality and thus expanding their understanding of the reality they live and their place within the new universe they inhabit. We see Heidegger stating this very concept when he states “When we think through what this is, that a tree in bloom presents itself to us so that we can come and stand face-to-face with it, thing that matters first and foremost, and finally, is not to drop the tree in bloom, but for once let it stand where is stands.” We see that the hardest thing for us to understand when thinking is to simply let the object of thought exist without special considerations. So we do not approach contemplative thinking with a lens of preconceived notion that we force the though into, rather we allow the object to be as it is and we learn the reality of the object. When this reality is achieved we then see our reality expands through understanding and our place in the universe shifts with this

Once we learn to think what comes next. When we say control our thinking we begin the process incorrectly and seldom see the true potential of thought do to our own refusal to learn. We prefer then nice and tidy way that our knowledge has been learned and seldom wish to pursue the reality that we may be wrong. We see Aristotle confirming that contemplative thinking is the way to the highest happiness when he states “Now if we take away from a living being action, and still more production, what is left but contemplation? Therefore the activity of God, which surpasses all others in blessedness, most be contemplative; and of human activities, therefore, that which is most akin to this must be most of the nature of happiness.” We see that contemplative thinking is allows mankind to reach towards God and thus allows us to approach a happiness that shows greater potential that that of a happiness of flesh. This creates a desire to continue this way of thinking as we seek what causes pleasure. The truth of this is that we should seek this form of thinking as it allows us to see beyond the common understandings of what reality really is and allows is to see what reality is unfettered and unmolested by preconceived