Rumination – What’s the Point? Is thinking worthwhile, or not? It depends on whether or not you have a point!

In the movie, “Planes, Trains and Automobiles”, Steve Martin says to John Candy: “You know when you're telling these little stories? Here's a good idea: have a point. It makes it so much more interesting for the listener!”

Sometimes people deride thinkers as muddled and impractical, and I understand this because many are. To me the worst thing is thought without a point. There is a difference between ruminating to obtain clarity and thinking just to think.

Ruminate. dictionary.com says:

v 1: chew the cuds; "cows ruminate" 2: reflect deeply on a subject; "I mulled over the events of the afternoon"; "philosophers have speculated on the question of God for thousands of years"; "The scientist must stop to observe and start to excogitate" [syn: chew over, think over, meditate, ponder, excogitate, contemplate, muse, reflect, mull, mull over, speculate]

It’s a great word, and I believe, an important quality to develop. I heard a pastor once say that “ruminate” was the word that the psalmist had in mind in Psalm 1:2, when he wrote, “But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates (or ruminates) day and night.”

The example that dictionary.com used, “philosophers have speculated on the question of God for thousands of years” is evidence that perhaps even the dictionary doesn’t get it. I may be moving from definition to connotation here, but there is a huge difference between rumination and speculation.

The purpose of bovine rumination (to echo Dave Barry, ‘Bovine Rumination’ would be a great name for a band) is to get the food to the point where it is energy, where it provides life to old Bossie. Speculation can go on forever with no result; rumination ends with digestion. Rumination should beget clarity (and maybe some gas…); speculation may beget nothing but more speculation, or it may result only in the speculator feeling pretty darned good about what a thinker he thinks he is…

Speculation becomes a mental treadmill if it leads to nothing but more speculation, or worse, it becomes mental masturbation if it just leads to the speculator feeling good about his thoughts. In neither is clarity gained.

Speculative thinking is widespread today because relativism (all points are equal) and cognitive dissidence (the ability to believe two opposing views at the same time and not seeing the contradiction—e.g., being a moral relativist and also believing in something as “wrong” or “right”) are the order of the day and inconclusive thinking is the natural result.

Rumination leads to clarity because it has an object (a point) and a process. The process is the refinement of the object until it breaks down into useful components (e.g., as food into energy). It is gradual, but purposeful. Even the gas has a purpose.

The ruminator needs to start with: “I know there is a point, and I trust I will find it.” That makes all the difference.