Cause to Wonder

FOR Thinker (writing.com)
Review follows -

You have a very interesting subject. You made a good start. Your opening paragraph ended, wanting to say, why do we do things without thinking? Good!

The second paragraph is supposed to make your objective clearer – what you want to point out. It ends, showing that you’re one person looking for meaning.

The third paragraph shows it is thinking that is your subject. You failed, however, to tie it up with your search for meaning. You left it hanging and without some support. Mentioning that people think you’re weird for thinking, you shift away a little from your topic. It is all right if you had strengthened your base – established and defined strongly your topic (Is it Why we do things without thinking? Or Search for meaning?)

The fourth paragraph talks about war in an attempt to pick up from what you were saying in Paragraph 1. It shows WHAT things we do without thinking (Again, it’s war). However, it has not moved up a bit to show WHY we do things without thinking.

The last paragraph hangs – and talks about an altogether different subject, which is “people management.”

Resolve:

Your second paragraph in reference to your girl friend’s “afterward explaining that communion meant nothing” was your chance to exploit senseless rituals happening in our midst. It could have enriched that paragraph or the succeeding paragraphs to elaborate on things we do without thinking.

Rituals, beliefs handed down by those before us, conventions, customs, so-called sacraments, folkways, customs, and even procedures may be questioned as to their raison d'etre, their explanation, justification, philosophy. Man is a thinking individual as you said and he must do things with reason. These “senseless” procedures could have been described to a stretch to show that indeed man does things without thinking.

Your example of war is easily understood as “War is bad because it causes untold misery and many people die.” Nobody questions this. The one needing an intelligent discussion was your girlfriend’s reaction to your asking questions of an event or ritual because things that we do without questions need to be examined.

As you end your editorial, it is best that you make it very, very clear. It is where you give your punch. By “managed,” did you mean manipulated? Controlled? Make your words point to the same direction. “Managed” is much too positive for the direction of your dissenting (negative) voice.