We think, therefore, we are. Our republic and all its working is founded on deep thought: deep individual thought by our civilian and military saviours; deep collective thought by the leaders and readers of public mind. Thinking is our natural national habit.

When there was a crisis beyond our borders, we hunkered down and just thought. When a problem arose within the boundaries of the realm, we got together and did what we have always done think. From foreign policy to national security, from economy to politics, from health and education to the environment, there was nothing that we didn’t think over. We had multiple forums where we did our thinking: if one forum couldn’t somehow bring itself to think, another would rush in to fill the gap. In high offices, in the military’s command-and-control rooms, in the parliament and at All-Parties Conferences, in newspaper columns and television talk shows thinking men, and sometimes thinking women, everywhere, always hard at work. Thank goodness for such a comprehensive process of thinking clearly, we have solved all our problems.

Except for a few minor irritants, of course. To begin with, we only need to decide whether civilian democracy suits us; we only don’t understand what role religion should or should not play in the affairs of state and society; we are only ever so slightly confused about the need for empowering the provinces and regions so that they can create a durable republic that can endure. Also, possibly a couple of other smaller issues, like the division of national resources, distribution of national and individual wealth and incomes and depleting water resources.

Not that we haven’t thought about these issues. We have. We only get distracted. By what is happening in Yemen. By the people who want to return to their homes in a land still claimed both by military and militants. By the demands that we keep our lights switched on and our factories humming with electric power that never takes a break. By this election or that, by this political conflagration or that, by this law-and-order problem or that.

We encounter these day-to-day distractions by, well, not thinking. When a brotherly Muslim country, home to the most sacred Muslim sites in the world and our munificent benefactor of the first and last resort asks for help, should we just ask that it wait before we think through the possible consequences? When those displaced from North Waziristan are told by the military to go back home, why should we stop and ponder over the unconstitutional and utterly inhuman demands being made of them before letting them return to what are essentially their native lands? When another brotherly Muslim country sends us liquefied natural gas, why should we waste our time wondering about its prices? And what about a senate election marred by a last-minute presidential order to keep tribal-area legislators out of the number game, a judicial commission to probe election fraud, continued siege-and-search operations in Karachi by military-led security forces do we really want to think if all these are constitutional or even legal?

While we have done all our thinking already, we can’t really think about such ordinary, day-to-day stuff. Things happen. Somebody does them. Yemen is being taken care of, the displaced are being made to sign on the mortifying dotted line before they head back to their ancestral villages and towns, liquefied natural gas is flowing somewhere and the money for it is also flowing somewhere. Political questions are being addressed.

We, after all, are not standing still. So, why should we think about where we are being moved, for what and by whom?

We think, therefore, we are. That should be sufficient for a people who have already done all their thinking.