Thinking Is Overrated

"...................................What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.
Sure, he that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and godlike reason
To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be
Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple
Of thinking too precisely on the event—
A thought which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom
And ever three parts coward—I do not know
Why yet I live to say 'This thing's to do,'
Sith I have cause, and will, and strength, and means
To do't. Examples gross as earth exhort me." -Hamlet

"'But I'll tell you something else, Charlie."  I said and backed away from the mirror.  'I'm not your friend.  I'm your enemy.  I'm not going to give up my intelligence without a struggle.  I cant go back down into the cave.'" - Flowers For Algernon

I have a serious dislike for thinking.  Often my brain will decide to shut down and I'll do and say crazy (often vulgar, disrespectful, and profane) things that would normally never come out of my mouth on purpose; then I lose all memory of those few unfiltered brain-dead moments of bliss.  I think it's how my mind copes with always thinking "to precisely on the event."  Mind mind is constantly moving and is constantly in search of some type of stimulation.  I hate this.  Mostly I hate this because it means that there is no "off" button and my mind keeps going and going and going and going until it overloads, there is a an internal core meltdown, and I suffer the shut down mentioned above.

A famous philosopher once said that "I think; therefore, I am."  One one level I appreciate the deep philosophical ideas that this brings up.  My thoughts about the world and myself alter my perception of the world and myself.  My existence on this earth hinges on my ability to rationalize my experiences and ideologies, which is very true to some extent.  If I wasn't capable of thought, I might walk off a cliff thinking that I could fly because I had seen birds do the same thing.  Okay, that may be a bit extreme, but as an analogy it works.  The things I do and the ways in which I act make up how I live my life and, by extension, my being.

There's a popular joke in nerd circles concerning the philosopher who wrote the quote in the paragraph above:  Descartes walks into a bar and sits down on one of the bar-stools.  The bartender comes over, polishing a glass with a white cloth and asks Descartes, "Would you like a glass of Absinthe, sir?"  Descartes shakes his head and says, "I think not," and before he got a chance to ask for just a simple glass of wine he disappeared.

Yes, hardy har har har.  This joke makes fun of the "I think;therefore, I am" principle, and this leads into the other level where I hate this quote and can't stand it.  I just DON'T want to think sometimes.  If my existence hinges on my ability to rationalize, then I feel like sometimes it might be nice to not be able to think at all.  I think part of the reason that I wish I was back in Kindergarten, other than being able to have naptime, is that all I was ever really worried about was learning the alphabet, understanding how to count, and coloring inside the lines.  As an adult, I don't have this luxury, not many of us do.

Anytime something happens I have to rationalize it.  I'm a pragmatist.  I don't see the glass as half empty as half full.  If someone is filling up the glass and then asks me "Is this half empty or half full?," I will automatically say that it is half full because the action that was being enacted upon the glass was "filling."  If someone emptied out the glass and asked the same question, I would say that it was half empty because of the same reason.  If I came across a glass on the table, I would say it is half empty because some of the water may have evaporated; therefore, the primary action would still be "to empty."

I have to say that tall of this is one of the things I seriously dislike about myself.  I dislike having to think through everything.  I can't be spontaneous;  I have to input whatever I can and then spew it out to whomever I can;  I can't sleep through the night without waking up or having a night terror unless I have a Tylenol P.M. or, more recently, Xanex; I can't be emotional and selfish until I sort through every detail of a shitty situation with a fine-toothed comb.  Can I get an "Amen?!"

Yet, through all of this, I know that I am a thinking being.  It makes my existential heart happy to know that I can exist and breath in and out, but that my often overactive mind gives me my being, my life.  It's times like this, moments where I make an interesting connection between my favorite anime voice actors or with the possible uses of a chainsaw, where I thank God that I am who I am and, despite how hard thinking is sometimes and how much I wish I could shut up my mind and be selfish and emotional and spontaneous, that I am able to think complex thoughts, to thrive mentally and talk about art, history, literature, movies, and music with intelligence.  For that ability, the ability to observe the world and "think to precisely on the event,"  I can stand occasionally shutting down and make unknown witty and somewhat horrid remarks.