Fuzzy thinking is a rather involved subject (luckily it has its own page on Wikipedia) and the simplest way to describe it describes is as "a many-valued logic."

The kind of fuzzy thinking I'm talking about is a few steps away from the yes-no logic you may have seen plotted out in many business procedural flowcharts. Fuzzy logic isn't yes-no. It's " yes," "No,"  and "I'm not sure/ I don't know/ Hey, wait. What's that?/ What about this?/ Let's do this and see what happens while we do other stuff too."

Why cultivate it?
It's easier. Fuzzy logic is closer to the way human reasoning processes work. You get to see multi-dimensionally, not just 'the obvious choice' or what's right in front of you. You get branch out into little known eddies and creeks of new knowledge-- and while knowledge is power, knowledge plus new insight? That can open up a whole new ballgame for you to play in.

How do you practice fuzzy logic?

• Play with the way you look at things. Look at the obvious. Now look at what's next to it. Then look at what's under that.
  
• Info-dump. Keep current. Don't assume all you know is all there is. Ask for other people's points of view, and remain open to where they're coming from.
• Read the hell out of stuff that interests you, and ask other people what they'd recommend.
• Go out and experience things -- without a plan, and without judgment. In other words, be willing to get lost.

See, linear thinking tries to find the shortest distance between two points -- thus the straight line. Apply it to life and that flies out the window.There's just too much of you (the sum of your knowledge and experiences, the state of your emotions and your daily life) and life isn't always predictable. Things change, you can't say for sure that the shortest distance is actually going to get you where you want to go. Life isn't carved in stone. People can and do give predictions and forecasts, but that's all these are. They're not guarantees.

Fuzzy thinking tries to balance clarity with vision: you see things as they are, and as they could be, and you try to keep your balance as you walk between these two forces. Like preparing for the worst while hoping for the best, and powering through the bullshit even as you try to believe that it's worth doing.

Barriers to opening up.
On a mostly unconscious level you assume everyone else thinks like you, lives like you, having the same likes and dislikes, sees things the same way you do and gives them the same values as you, having the same approaches to life, because you are the sum and center of your world and at your mental bedrock -- if you haven't experience a serious soulquake-- is that world-view that this ? Is your universe and everyone else is just, uh. Everyone Else. In your universe.

And when hard evidence comes up proving that unconscious assumption wrong, wrong, oh so wrong, either you accept that it's something new -- or step back over the line and skeeve out. Think about making friends from other countries, heck, other towns and other cities, and learning new things that blast your assumptions out of the water. Things that make you stumble over well-worn neural ruts and reconsider your usual way of thinking.

• French fries with cheese curds and gravy? French fires with mayonnaise? With caramel sundaes, or better yet, strawberry?
• Indie rock. Skinny jeans. Vintage clothes - vintage anything. Tattoos. Crocs.
• Spinning - the textile-thing, not the exercise.
• Mac. Or PC.
  

Admit it. There must be a few things on your "Never in a million years list, ever...." You have an idea of what certain things stand for -- their value and their merit -- and that's YOUR belief, but what YOU believe doesn't always and forever hold true for anyone else. Fuzzy thinking is connection, merge and scatter, then connecting the people, not only the dots. It's data analysis via hands on experience, with no prejudicial filters that say THIS is the only way, THAT is not right.

Take a look here: The Beloit College Mindset list may shock you. Today's teens and college-age people don't know what you know. Their facility with computers may dismay you -- online lives, seem fake, or superficial, but maybe it's their way of thinking that is influenced by the way they grew up, just like you were in your childhood. But that doesn't mean they're wrong.

And that doesn't mean that you're wrong either. Both sets of mind-sets can be true and real without canceling each other out. Fuzzy thinking doesn't hold facts to be unassailable. You practice holding opposing thought in your head without disproving one or the other as valid or false.
"Yes, it's a fact, but is it real to you?"
"Yes, it may be real to you, but it is a fact?"
You develop clarity of a sort....you try to make the leap between non-obvious points of connection, and that means being open to ideas you don't necessarily agree with, and opinions that oppose yours. Fuzzy thinking acknowledge you know nothing for sure, so you keep relaxed and open -- but not so much open minded that your brain falls out. The goal is to connect, not to disconnect.

Bonus links:
Fuzzy is about connections. You want to see connections? You want awesome wallpaper? Go see the beautiful and well-known Internet connection maps at Chrisharrison.net.  His visualizations are also something to look at. And in the same vein, go visit  the equally well-known "Maps of the Internet" by Barret Lyon