Thinking – Discovering my inner world

I have always had this habit of letting my thoughts loose to just wander around, and trace back the chain of thoughts as to see where I started from and how I reached a certain thought. This is my favorite past time, when I wait for appointments, buses, during travelling and almost all the time when I am left idle. Today it occurs to me that I have never wondered about my experience of thinking itself, while actually doing it all the time, either consciously or unconsciously.

Today, when I think about my experiences of thinking, I realize that my thinking wasn’t constant throughout my journey. I thought differently during different points of my life. Various factors affected my thinking in various ways. So, can I say “thinking is not a constant experience but a dynamic one?” “Does one’s thinking depend on their life experiences?”  I feel that I think very similar to my dad. Most of the times, we come out with same thoughts and words. It makes me wonder if thinking is influenced by inherent characteristics or genes. I also wonder if thinking actually needs a language.

I remember a time, when I used to think in Telugu, which is my mother tongue. While today, I think in English. Now I tried to think in Telugu once again, and it seems to be little difficult. “Does thinking have a language? Does it have preference of one language over the other? ”Is there clarity of thought when one thinks in the language they are comfortable with?” does thinking mean “listening to your own thoughts?”

My thinking isn’t always monologue. There is a dialogue between two sets of thoughts.  I argue with myself and at instances laugh at my own arguments. Further extending these thoughts, I sometimes think in pictures too. These are the pictures I either recollect from my memory or sometimes create them myself.

Now, with my thoughts pondering about thinking, I am discovering a whole new world inside me, which I never realized, that existed. I most of the times lived in this ‘thought world’ playing different roles from an innocent sleeping baby to savior of the earth. I use this world as my rescue, when I need to run away from the real world. I remember this particular incident of picturing myself as bold speaker, while I was standing on the stage and trembling to speak. Most of the times, this thought world takes me into its arms to comfort me from real life problems. I create a whole scenario of the problem and its alternative solutions to estimate the effect each solution would have on me and people around. There were times when I pictured myself as solving these problems and standing as an achiever. Almost all the time, I am the protagonist in the play.

Though thinking happens all the time, thoughts are not always meaningful. At times, they tend to be random, unrelated, weird and creepy too. It takes enormous amount of energy to channelize my thoughts and not let them wander around. It makes me feel like a mental exercise. Thinking about mental exercises, sometimes I wonder how the phrase “food for thought” came into existence. “Do thoughts really need food?” “Do we lose our thinking ability if we don’t practice it (or can I say feed it)?” Does it become easier to channelize thoughts with practice? Are there methods to keep one focused on a single thought? Are there ways to develop specific ways of thinking like critical thinking and creative thinking? Are there ways to practice ‘not-thinking’?

 I also had instances where I did not think absolutely anything. At these instances, I did not think of not thinking anything too. My thought world would be blank and I wouldn’t realize that I wasn’t thinking anything. This mostly happens when I dance. My body dances to the well-practiced steps but my thoughts go blank. These are the moments I feel like in a world of eternal peace. “So, is thinking causing turbulence and making me loose peace?” “Is it good to think at all?” “What happens if we don’t think? Is it possible to stop thinking voluntarily?”

With all this thought about experiences of my thinking, should I call it an experience at all? Is thinking an experience like pain or pleasure? Can thoughts be felt? Do thoughts have any impact on physical processes of the body? Do thoughts control our body or body controls our thoughts?

Thinking about thinking is more like questioning the question. Should we ask right questions to figure out right answers? Do these questions have answers or will the answers lead to more questions and a lot more thinking?