It isn't my thinking pattern that sustains me, Bill. It's my state of being that sustains me. My thinking pattern sustains my outward personality, but my outward personality isn't the entirety of what I am. In fact, it's just a temporary mask that overlays what I am. Most people assume that that mask IS all they are.

Yes, I have inner and outer destinations. Inner destinations have to do with the state of my consciousness. Outer destinations have to do with how that consciousness expresses itself in the world of outer phenomena.

Like you, I "value the mind, and try to exercise and train mine to sort out 'life', no matter where it leads me. What this gets me is seldom **the answer**, but rather, a list of 'inadequate answers' and thus, better betting odds and winnowing down the possibilities."

Yes, indeed. We both do that. But I place a greater value still on what lies beyond the mind and is greater than the mind, and that's my state of being. Pure being. It doesn't think. It knows. It doesn't seek. It's already there. It doesn't want. It already has. It doesn't fear, because it's indestructible. My mind does fear, however, because it knows it's mortal as it knows that the body is mortal, and they're both only temporary. My state of being goes on regardless of that, because it's not temporary.

And you won't believe that. ;-) And I can't prove it to you either...nor would I attempt to.

I don't talk to you about these things to prove anything, I talk because I enjoy the process of discussing them.

Regaring your quotation above...There is no such thing as "those who won't think" or "those who can't think"...because every ordinary human being does a great deal of compulsive thinking whenever he's awake and conscious. His mind chatters, repeats past thoughts, engages in imaginary dialogue with others, and thinks anxious thoughts about the future. All that is thinking, but it's mostly useless thinking. Your quotation, however, was not referring to that. It was referring to people who don't (or can't) think in an organized and effective manner. And there are any number of examples of that around.