I Think I Had a Thought
- Jamie Blaise
- Aug 31
- 3 min read
I realized something strange today. It was likely not for the first time*, but startling nonetheless. I discovered that I'm not in control of my thoughts. Sometimes I think I might just be along for the ride.
My thoughts can be quite surprising to me. I don't always know what thoughts are going to pop in there.
By the way, did you see what just happened? "I don't always know what thoughts are going to pop in there." What a curious use of the word "there". What does "there" mean? It means away from oneself. Otherwise it would be "here", not "there". When one speaks of their brain, you'd think they might point to their noggin and say "here". But I, for some reason, went with "there". It was completely subconscious. It was not intentional, but I did notice what I had done immediately when I saw the word typed out. Hence, this tangent. But it only further proved my other point: My thoughts can be quite surprising, even to me.
Here's how this can often pan out:
1. I have a random thought
2. I might become aware of the thought (however it may not always be instantly)
3. If I become aware of it, I wonder where that random thought came from
4. Then I may ponder the amazing fact that I am thinking at all (like, what is that?)
5. I have a desire to write this all down for study later, or to share in my blog
6. A squirrel happens (ADHD)
7. I completely lose my train of thought and never write it down
8. I have this exact line of thinking six months later, another absolute epiphany
So, if I'm not intentionally in the driver's seat of my own thoughts, then who is? Who's driving this thing? Where are these random thoughts coming from?
In case you're worried, I'm not talking about voices telling me to kill the neighbor's dog or something. I'm talking about weird, random thoughts that just pop in.
Arghh! I can't think of one! Here I am, giving myself a headache trying to remember any random thought I've had recently, and not a single one is available to me. Nothing. And I realized that this fact was literally draining my energy, and it made me want to stop writing and just go to sleep. So I consciously made a decision to discontinue that path. It would only lead to madness.
And now, again, I'm proving a point I've made before. I can't remember shit. It is all-pervasive. It affects everything in my life. And not in very positive ways.
Anyway, I don't need to go down that road, either. Another conscious decision to turn away from those uncontrolled thoughts. Therein lies sadness.
But, there you have it. Two thoughts, unbidden. I denied their passage, I did not want to entertain those kinds of thoughts. They were not happy thoughts. And they were completely unintentional thoughts. That's the weird thing I'm trying to explain. Realizing that I didn't want to entertain the thoughts, and then denying them, was intentional. But the original thoughts were not.
Where did they come from? My recent strange thought experiment comes to mind. Read my last blog post for the details on that fun exploration.
And my old Chronicles of Sizzle stuff comes to mind too.
Anyway, that's enough meta thinking on thoughts. I'm tired. It's bedtime. And epiphanies are exhausting. Every time.
*I often have epiphanies that I've had before. I'm not kidding. More than a couple of times, I've told my ever so patient wife about a grand realization that I've gotten all excited about. She will give me one of her looks, then proceed to tell me that I said this exact thing like six months ago. On the one hand, it's terribly difficult for me to hold on to new ideas if I don't use the knowledge routinely for a while. But on the other hand, the repeat discoveries can make for endless excitement!
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