June 9, 2009
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Lining up our ducks
We often don't remember where our thoughts occurred—but we are thinking them all the time. Thoughts come to us subconsciously throughout the day which we might report to others later, without a clue as to where they came from. We plan our futures walking by McDonald's, consider our worldviews while stopped at a red light, break up with our girlfriends while we're in church.
And there is always some first cause which leads us to a thought which leads to the conclusion. And to just think: if we hadn't run into that cause, we wouldn't have come to that conclusion. Seeing a mailman scurry by with a panicked look on his face could end in the decision to become a vegetarian. But otherwise, who knows, maybe the idea would have never struck us just right.
The first domino of a million thought patterns exist all around us throughout the day—I wonder what conclusions we will come to.
And all this I thought in logic class because I was watching the lecture, but really in my head I was planning out what I was going to do all week. Then I imagined telling someone later my plans for the week—but realized I normally wouldn't remember when I had made such plans. But here I was, mapping it all out in class. But most of the time we don't remember in which context and for what reason our thoughts came to us.
Comments (7)
How I love to read these snippets of your contemplations.
They make me happy.
I make an effort to always retrace my thoughts. You are right, when a human mind wanders, it wanders far far away.
"The first domino of a million thought patterns exist all around us throughout the day—I wonder what conclusions we will come to." Perfectly said.
Martha
I plan ways to remember Xanga blog post ideas that I will never have because I am too busy trying to think of ways to remember them.
@TheMarriedFreshman -
Good to hear.
@liferemainsbeautiful -
"I make an effort to always retrace my thoughts. You are right, when a human mind wanders, it wanders far far away."
It is interesting isn't it? Especially if you ever do a stream of consciousness writing. Then you can actually watch your thoughts develop; it's like your thought life from the last ten minutes can be before you in a microsoft word document.
(Or, for the truly dedicated, in a Xanga weblog entry.)
@StrokeofThought -
I find there to be a positive correlation between what we describe as 'intelligent' and how far the mind can wander yet still remain on the same page. That's all intelligence is really, connectivity, and the ability to find connections that lead on to bigger and better things. The wonderful domino effect.
I love stream of consciousness writing. The problem is, many people when doing that may get discouraged from sharing it at all. When writing in stream of consciousness, I tend to find myself editing what I previously wrote, as if editing my thoughts o_0 It seems your posts slightly take on that nature, though. And they are most enjoyable =]
@liferemainsbeautiful -
"That's all intelligence is really, connectivity, and the ability to find connections that lead on to bigger and better things."
Yeah!! That's why it's fun to read a whole bunch and then make connections between the characters that other people imagined and your life.
"When writing in stream of consciousness, I tend to find myself editing what I previously wrote. . ."
Right - completely unaltered stream of thought tends to get pretty whacky. I post by theme instead - the stream of thought would be too crazy to follow I think. LOL.