Thinking About Thinking

A lot of people tell me that I am, but in truth, I am not sure what the term actually means. I know I think a lot because I am continuously having little conversations with myself. I have a good understanding of what people mean when they use the word deep. I like to search for the truth and think I have a good nose for bullshit. I ask a lot of questions and keep asking them until I cannot ask anymore. So I can understand how people could view me as being deep. Meaningful is another matter entirely. Do I think that my thinking is meaningful? I used to until I read The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle and now my view is ready to be changed.

Life isn’t as serious as the mind makes it out to be – Eckhart Tolle

I worry that I will forget everything that I think about and so I write journals in the morning, journals in the night and record a diatribe of notes on my phone. I struggle to sleep at night and I struggle to retain focus on a specific task. When I think about the future I think, how are my relationships going to end? How am I going to earn money if the poker world doesn’t need a writer? How am I going to achieve everything in life that I want to? When I think about the past I think, why wasn’t I a better husband? Why didn’t I play with my son more? Why didn’t I learn more?

Worry pretends to be necessary, but serves no purpose – Eckhart Tolle

In my description of a Daydreamer I celebrate the awakening of the mind and applaud the introduction of thinking. In the book The Power of Now Tolle has taught me not to get too carried away just yet. Tolle views the mind as a tool, and as with any tool it has a specific task. Once the task has been completed then you put the tool away. Tolle believes that most humans find it very difficult to put the mind down once it has served its purpose. We are still drilling away despite the hole being already bored. He tells you that most of your thinking is repetitive, useless, negative and harmful. If you are the type of person who keeps a diary or a journal then if you are honest with your evaluation of your written words you will reluctantly agree that he is right.

Awareness is the greatest agent for change – Eckhart Tolle

Our minds control us; and for some of us the mind can make us extremely ill and even cause death. We become addicted to thinking and identify with it. As we grow up we develop an ego, and this ego is created by your mind and the mental images created by the way that society and your mentors raise you. The ego – the result of constant thinking – can only exist if it is fed more thoughts. As long as an ego takes control of your life, then thinking is always going to be problematic, irrespective, of whether it is deep or even meaningful thinking.

Do you ever think about thinking? When you do what do you come up with?

Inspiration

The inspiration from this blog post comes from the book The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. Not a lot of people think about thinking and the only reason for this is there a very few people who talk about it. In my lifetime I have never held a discussion with anyone about why I think and whether or not the thoughts that I conjure up are beneficial or even necessary. In fact the discussion about thinking is so rare that people actually believe you are quite mad if you even dare mention the subject.

Photo courtesy of @boetter (cc @ flickr.com)