It is like my brain, my mind, is a thought generating and collecting machine. But why?
It is as if my mind cannot be still, it must generate or collect or absorb thoughts or else. Or else what? Looking at this situation, it feels as if my mind cannot tolerate not having thoughts. If thoughts subside or cease, my mind considers it an emergency in which it cannot cope. As a result, it must continue the hamster wheels of thoughts to survive.
But these thoughts all collude to form never-ending cycles of more thoughts, more ideas, more memories, more fears, more more more.
My thoughts provide one important viewpoint: the focus always remains on me. My thoughts are, by definition, all self-centered. My thoughts provide, even force me, to have a me-oriented view of the world. They exist to keep my me in operation at all times.
These thoughts in aggregate prevent me from seeing and experiencing the exact nature of the world. These thoughts are all interpreting, concluding, judging, elaborating, criticizing, evaluating, measuring, and so on, all of which provide never-ending layers of filters though which I encounter the world. If I never experience the world without my thoughts, fears, and so on, then I do not really know what the world is. All I know is my narrow, obscured view of it.
All my thoughts together provide the fuel, the fodder, the energy to maintain a personal and self-centered view of the world. The emergency that occurs when or if my thoughts subside is only a reaction from my “me” that wants to perpetuate itself. My “me” associates the subsiding of thoughts to its own death. Which is true: if my thoughts diminish or stop, my “me” struggles to survive. Therein lies a painful dilemma.
I Wonder…
What is the world if I did not process it through the veil of these thoughts, fears, concepts, habits, distractions, etc.?
What is the world without all of my thought-circus shouting, screaming, parading in my mind?
What is the world without my “me” to interpret, judge, filter? Can I survive a death of these “me” activities?
Question
Why then would anyone want to change to a me-less view of the world? Is it possible to exist without the never-ending pageant of ideas, thoughts, opinions, criticisms, notions, and so on?
A Consideration
When I realize I had become a slave to all my unnecessary thinking, then all of the endless spectacle in my mind of ideas, theories, and suppositions all suddenly became a damaging distraction, a hurtful liability.
What Does This Mean?
Since all of this activity distracts me from reality, I am only dimly aware of what really goes on around me. Which means I can neither really fully evaluate nor fully participate in the real world.
Is There A Way To Be Free?
There is a way to be free.
Freedom
By realizing my predicament, I have the opportunity to free myself from the confines of my incessant thinking. If I realize I am not my assumptions, I have a choice. By freeing myself, I can be a full participant in the world, a more observant member of the world, much more perceptive and attentive, less oblivious; seeing with more clarity and precision. I can be a present person.
In so doing, being present, I can see the world more clearly, I can understand it better without my obscurations. I can see the world as it is.
Is This Relevant?
By being totally present, by seeing what truly is, I am far less likely to be a victim of falsehoods and untruths, far less susceptible to propaganda and misleading advertising. As a result, ultimately my decisions are innately my own.
What about you and your thinking? Let me know here.
The Cattleya Mendelii, var. Empress Of India, orchid illustration is from “Travels and adventures of an orchid hunter. An account of canoe and camp life in Colombia, while collecting orchids in the northern Andes” by Albert Millican, published in 1891. Courtesy Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island.
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