Thinking About Thinking

My mind is such a random place, where obscure and relevant ideas bounce off the walls of my skull like words shouted or whispered that carry and rattle around from point to point. Some thoughts impact the sides so hard, they reverberate vibrations throughout my body, making my cells tingle. Typically, the noise is loudest when the world around me is at its most quiet, and often when I'm attempting to shut down for the evening so that I may sleep. That maddening event is one of the reasons I became compelled to write. I found that using a pen to surgically extract those thoughts was extremely helpful in gaining some peace and a semblance of control over them. If you read what I've written in the past through these free-writing exercises, however, little would make sense as I do not allow myself to edit what comes pouring out. I merely give my hand and the pen I'm holding over to the conduit of my brain and let the words flow freely out into existence

For a long time, I found the randomness of my thoughts very frustrating and confusing. What did they mean? Why did they matter? How did they fit in with who I am? Why would I call up something or someone I hadn't wondered about for years at a time that seemed inopportune and/or irrelevant? . When I began taking Sociology classes, I discovered that not only could I find answers to the posed questions above, but also that mine was not the only brain chewing away on things in this manner. That is when my love affair with Sociology began, because it helps to know that I'm not alone and to realize that this way of thinking is not only common, but normal. Later, when I added philosophy classes into the mix, I was delighted to discover that far greater minds than mine have been asking themselves the same kinds of questions since mankind crawled out of caves and created ways to have more free-time in their lives that they could spend thinking, wondering, making sense of themselves and the world around them. I have learned to embrace the beauty in the random as I search for my own place in the world and ways to live a life full of meaning.

*Image from knowledgeoftheday.org

---