Addiction to Ideas & Thoughts
Hi there, ✋
I’m Miguel, living in Barcelona, and like most of us, this last year I’ve had a “surprising” lot of time to digest huge amounts of content. To actually process this content is not always possible, but I found that writing about stuff and ideas is quite a good exercise. 😝
Btw: Maybe you like to read weird stuff too. I have other small, quick to read, and curious posts on my profile that may interest you ➡️ Miguel Parente
We can say that we are living in a peculiar moment… However, I don’t agree with people who say that we are living in the most important time of humankind. You know… there is 1945 and other periods in history like when the pyramids were built.
Either way, this is a time where we find most of us immersing deep dive in our thoughts and ideas. 🧠🤯
This is what I want to finish with… IDEAS & THOUGHTS. It’s really strange that I’m telling you at the beginning what I vision to end with, but maybe it will make sense.
We are not the owners of our bodies
The first time I heard this idea, my mind felt like it was receiving a very obvious and logical message, but at the same time it was exploding with the will to explore something new.
I heard it for the first time in one of the million Joe Rogan’ episodes I’ve listened in the last year. So, I couldn’t really say in which one was it.
But it was quite striking!! 💥
It’s actually very naive to think that in some way or another we are the rulers or the owners of our bodies. The human body is inhabited by millions of tiny living organisms, which, all together, are called the human microbiota. Bacteria are microbes found on the skin, in the nose, mouth, and especially in the gut. We acquire these bacteria during birth and the first years of life, and they live with us throughout our lives.
Now, scientists have unveiled the first survey the "human microbiome," which includes 10,000 species and more than 8 million genes.
This now is from 2012, and there is a bunch of articles from this period where you can find out more about this huge ecosystem living literally inside you: https://www.futurity.org/10000-microbe-species-live-on-your-body/
So, if we want to be objective, we must admit that there are millions of other living organisms that maybe have a greater impact in the path our body ends up taking. 💡 🐛
We live in a black box
This is another thought that I love to try to wrap my head around, and it’s claustrophobic and open minded at the same time.
We do see, and taste, and smell, and hear, everything around us… or at least we think we do. But, the truth is not that simple. Everything we feel and experience, it’s the output of a very complex process. This begins with the reception of information, goes through a vast grid of nerve connections and stimulus, and ends up being assimilated by our main CPU.
What our brain tells us it’s what we think it’s the reality and the truth, but more often that not, we find out to be mistaken and quite far from it.
If you don’t believe me… just see this video explaining how optical illusions trick your brain. 😵
<a href="https://medium.com/media/2b7c2b2f0d7b014079c712c68f6c0934/href">https://medium.com/media/2b7c2b2f0d7b014079c712c68f6c0934/href</a>
In a brief resume, our brain is quite busy processing a lot of information that we don’t even know about. Thus, sometimes it takes shortcuts to create a tailored edit vision of the world.
You think it’s true, and it is… but actually is not. 🙈
Addiction to Ideas & Thoughts
Do you remember? I told you before that we were going to wind up here. 🔃
For sure, you also found your mind sometimes trying to go to a place without knowing that you wanted to go to that place. And now, that you are in that place you do not remember how in the first place you arrived at that place.
Ahahah that was a mouthful… but I’m just trying to describe the constant flux of ideas and thoughts being thrown at you in a high speed and deep range of creativity and nonsense.
Most of the times they do not make sense, and sometimes they do… but that is beside the point.
Where I want to arrive is that if you do not know how to deal with this vicious cycle, you can be lost in it.
As Alan Watts once said:
"What is the mind in the grip of vicious circles? The phenomenon of worrying."
<a href="https://medium.com/media/5ecc6818ff109d07b806f0982ce39160/href">https://medium.com/media/5ecc6818ff109d07b806f0982ce39160/href</a>
An enormous number of people devote their lives, keeping their minds busy and feel it extremely uncontrollable with silence. And when we are alone without anything to do, it is when appears this lack of distraction, this avalanche of ideas & thoughts… and worries that we cannot control.
Alan Watts goes on, and justify this behaviour as reflex of people trying to avoid themselves, trying to get away from themselves. That’s why we fill our time with distractions.
Now, you are maybe wondering why people try to get away from themselves?
This happens because people are addicted to ideas & thoughts.
Alan Watts even defines it as a drug, a compulsive habit that we cannot break out of and can be very dangerous loop.
Why is this dangerous?
Now, is when the rationality enters… and Alan Watts brilliant starts by comparing to much worrying too to much talking. My grandfather always said:
"You have two hears and one mouth... now do the math!" 🤐
Everyone knows, that if we talk too much, we lose the best parts because we were not listening. Also, if we think all the time we end up having nothing to think about unless our own thoughts.
This concludes as the academic fallacy of worrying too much and not actually living (aka, books about books and not books about life).
But, how to stop overthinking, to stop worrying?
The genius, elegant and simple answer is by not trying to… but if I may, I would also like to add, by embracing it.
What we do is what defines us, not what we think. Let the crazy shenanigans fly and not be afraid of them because they will not define you.
Happily ever after?
Yeahhh… maybe you are thinking that, ok these are some interesting concepts, but in what shape or form they are connected between them.
And believe me that I’m no one to tell you how do you should process and connect the different dots.
I don’t even see a clear connection myself, but in the mist I see some key points that help me to find peace.
I don’t like to take myself to seriously, and I do not like to assume that I’m in the control… and I consider that overthink these two does not help to real enjoy life.
Thanks! ❤
IMPORTANT: most of the images I use are from Muzli, and are used without any monetization purpose.