Einstein's Secret: Stop Thinking to Think Anew
Truth only arrives when we stop trying to seize it
The FASO Way newsletter — exploring how to thrive as an artist in the age of AI
We have another post today by Eugene Terekhin, the man and the mind behind the publication Philosophy of Language.
Eugene is a regular contributing writer to The FASO Way.
This article will be locked in two days for paying members only.
Feature Article:
Einstein's Secret: Stop Thinking to Think Anew
Please click the Like button—the little heart icon at the top and bottom—if you want a tiny council of silent Einsteins to drift into your studio, gently confiscate your overthinking, replace it with wonder, and whisper, “stop trying to seize the answer and let it come find you” — also, it helps us better promote the arts to those who need support.
Information is not knowledge. The only source of knowledge is experience. You need experience to gain wisdom.” – Albert Einstein.
I have always found this quote fascinating. One of the brightest minds of the 20th century claims that knowledge is not information.
For Einstein, knowledge doesn’t come by thinking:
“I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me.”
Einstein was famous for his deep, solitary contemplation. He often spent hours, even days, immersed in thought, walking, scribbling in notebooks, or just staring out the window.
He once said: “I think and think for months, for years. Ninety-nine times, the conclusion is false. The hundredth time I am right.”
This hundredth time, however, wasn’t the result of thinking but of “swimming in silence.”
Einstein was a genius not because of how well he thought or solved mathematical problems, but because he realized that thinking itself might be a problem. He said:
“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”
In other words, we must die to our familiar way of thinking in order to think differently. When we think the way we have always thought, we keep creating the same set of problems.
And those problems are unsolvable from the same level of consciousness that gave rise to them.
😊 I built FASO to push back against a world that treats art like content and artists like algorithms. Your work is more important than that. The world needs beauty more than ever. If our mission appeals to you, then you need a serious, beautiful home for your art, the details are below, after the essay.
—Clint
Einstein realized that true knowledge is not so much a matter of solving mathematical problems as of renouncing a particular type of consciousness.
What type of consciousness?
The one that thinks of knowledge as something we gain by collecting data points. Einstein found that truth comes to him when he ceases thinking.
In other words, truth is not something we reach out and grab – it is something that comes to us.
It is not something we seize but something that seizes us.
Truth comes – strikes us – as a revelation of Wonder. No wonder Einstein himself said:
“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is.”
He saw everything as a miracle.
He understood that if you reduce knowledge to information, you will want to collect as much data as possible. You will equate knowing with seizing data.
But this is exactly the type of consciousness that creates problems. We must realize that truth cannot be seized – it comes of its own accord. It reveals itself to a certain type of consciousness.
It reveals itself to a consciousness that humbly sees everything as a miracle. Such a consciousness is patient. It can wait for years until something suddenly becomes clear and lucid.
As Søren Kierkeggardt said:
“You cannot have the truth in such a way that you catch it, but only in such a way that it catches you.”
When we become too greedy for information, we betray true knowledge. It becomes unreachable.
Truth is revealed only to those who humble themselves before the vast miracle of existence. Truth yields itself to this type of consciousness.
To know, we must yield ourselves to experience.
And in experience, we become truly wise.
PS — This is part of the mystery of Art—we must learn, as artists, to humble ourselves before the “vast miracle of existence” and there, we find Truth revealed, and that informs the “messages” that we encode on canvas, in writing, or in song that we then transmit to others.
One of the reasons I built FASO is because I believe art is important, artists are important, and the work you’re called to create deserves to be taken seriously. We are all sharing “miracles of existence” through our art.
Yes, at FASO, we build professional artist websites. Yes, we talk about marketing. Yes, we give artists tools to present their work, tell their stories, reach collectors, and sell more art.
But that is the how.
The why is that we love art, and we want to push back against a world that too often treats art like content and artists like algorithms. The modern world denigrates Beauty in preference of profit and efficiency. At FASO, we hold Beauty sacred.
So we don’t just host artist websites. We promote artists. We feature their work. We try, in our own small way, to help more art find the people who need it. And that informs everything we do and build.
If that resonates with you, we’d be honored to have you join us.
PPS — If you’re not ready to look at FASO, you can support our mission by simply clicking the heart icon at the top or bottom of this article. That helps us reach more artists and art lovers and helps us spread Beauty to a world that is desperate for it.
—Clint
This is one of my favorite pieces Eugene! Thank you for writing it for us. I love Einstein's point of view about viewing everything as a miracle.
Meister Eckhart taught that silence is the highest expression of the divine, famously stating, "There is nothing in the world that resembles God so much as silence."