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Have you ever had someone tell you: “You think too much” ? (Take a moment to reflect on this statement – is it reasonable? Under what conditions can we “overthink” things?) The most recent person to have told me this said I rely too much on thought in my every day life; instead, I should do what I feel like at the moment, and simply go with it.*
Perhaps such a state of being is a peaceful solution to living: it is sure to grant you at least some happiness, and sure to make you grow and learn from your mistakes in diverse ways. Consider school, though. Suppose you weren’t forced (in one way or another) to go to school as a child, and instead gave into easy childhood pleasures. While you would have a wealth of experience others didn’t have, you would be greatly stunted in the ability to learn. Learning seems to me to be a fundamental requirement for life and accomplishing whatever it is you want to do. Going to school may not be fun now, but if it serves your overall direction, it will provide a greater and more encompassing sense of satisfaction. Most of us are not angry with our parents for forcing us to go to school, because knowledge serves our overall purpose. In truth, subordinating immediate gratification for a greater value is ultimately fulfilling and liberating. Those who rely on acting impulsively often don’t know what they want or don’t know how to get there: they have never learned the value of commitment and dedicated work, or don’t know what they value.
This sense of direction is determined by our childhood experiences. In no way do I suggest that parents should force their children to immediately subordinate pleasure for work and accomplishment. On the contrary, they should encourage free choice among their children, but also allow them to accept the consequences. Such a process allows the children to understand cause and effect in the real world: by directly experiencing the consequences of their actions, they learn to weigh their options and think critically. In doing so, rather than being taught to work toward a greater goal, they learn it themselves and grow to appreciate it. People who experienced inconsistent parenting in childhood and had disrupted lives often do not feel delaying pleasure is worthwhile, because an opportunity can so easily be lost. Rather, they scrounge to satisfy themselves in various ways, such as with money or romantic and sexual relationships.
Most of us have learned to delay pleasure for one purpose or another. However, in order for us to properly weigh the consequences of our actions, we must know exactly what we value. We can only weigh these consequences relative to some scale, and this scale is dictated by our goals, dreams and hopes, which are under direct influence of our values. If, for instance, we desire a happy and peaceful life, money or “societal success” cannot be one of our values. Money is only temporarily and easily satisfying: we always want more, and it can easily be lost or lose value. Furthermore, acquiring large sums of money often requires moral flexibility, and a history of lies and deceit will prevent us from feeling at peace with ourselves. We cannot actually acquire or determine happiness or peace by outside means: no one can “complete” us, give us something or achieve something for us that will make us happy – no one can make you happy. The responsibility is exclusively ours. What will allow one person peace will not necessarily work for another; these feelings are subject to our own values. Thus, the first thing we must do is determine what we value and how we define success for ourselves.
And that leads us back to thinking – knowing what we value is knowing ourselves, and self-knowledge requires the immense effort, courage and self-discipline to think about and analyze our self. If we care for ourselves, we will have the discipline to make time for taking care of ourselves and growing. The sense of being a valuable person – one worth caring for – is once again acquired during childhood, and it is a direct result of parental love and time dedicated by parents.
In the main, the point of this blog will be to explore the self. What makes us want to do things? What makes us productive? How do you achieve peace? Why do we repress our desires, and how do we find and understand them? What can our unconscious mind tell us about ourselves?
Our psyche is a relatively unknown and enigmatic thing. In this blog, ‘The Conscious Mind’, I will seek to resolve and understand the self through analysis on the basis of literature, psychoanalysis, and personal experience. I am taking a year to bike around Europe and explore these thoughts (starting June ’09). During that time, I plan to write and document my ideas, as well as to teach myself some math for pleasure and experiment. Hopefully, TL will serve as a good springboard for writing, for which I will also use this blog.
I hope to get feedback from you guys on any thoughts you have regarding what I write or the self. If you think I am entirely wrong, I would be glad to hear it.
Cheers to you,
Michael
* This means acting on impulsive desires and should not be confused with intuitive thinking.
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On April 19 2009 04:31 [ZiNC]Ling wrote:
You think too much
lol i saw that coming.
I found this blog really interesting and my grandpa says the same thing. A nice read. Thanks for writing it.
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Interesting, but I doubt anybody ACTUALLY disagrees with what you said in this blog.
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United States23619 Posts
What makes us want to do things?
desire or aversion
What makes us productive?
what do you mean?
How do you achieve peace?
stop desiring. stop being adverse.
Why do we repress our desires, and how do we find and understand them?
I think you are not being specific enough with this question.
What can our unconscious mind tell us about ourselves?
I believe you mean subconscious mind. If it is an unconscious mind, there is no awareness of it. So it can tell us nothing.
The subconscious mind gives us glimpses of the less prominent aspects of our true selves.
For what it's worth I still thought the original post was well written.
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^If you stop desiring, are you really at peace, or are you more prone to apathy? I would think apathy...
Note: I haven't completed reading the OP.
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I had a feeling travis would come here and own the OP, haha. But I do have to agree with travis, you are very vague about most of these questions. For example, "Why do we repress our desires?" is a question that can be expanded on itself, but the "and how do we find and understand them" is very vague. Do you mean how are we consciously aware of our desires, or *can we* be consciously aware? There can be so many ways to interpret this question.
But going on the first half of the question, I feel that people repress their desires in the interest of a longer-term, more beneficial desire.
Note: This example may not work very well, just work with me.
For example, most people don't murder each other:
Why would it be a desire?
There can be a massive variety of reasons, but as a general rule, one feels that their life would be more enjoyable without that person in their life, or a desire of revenge.
Why don't people murder each other?
No matter how much of a desire one *perceives* murder to be, their more logical mind considers the implications and consequences. For example, murder may satisfy one desire, but one would notice that murder would bring about paranoia, high likelihood of being arrested, and most likely either an early death, or life in a jail. Those consequences greatly outweigh the original desires, so a normal person most likely wouldn't commit murder.
What is one point of why people do murder each other?
One simple conclusion right off the bat is they could be psychopaths, being that they do not feel that the ramifications are not bad in the slightest, or just enjoy the thrill of murder, and do not care for anything else. One other, that I believe can be a reason, is people could have committed murder based on a quick reaction, or an irrational decision, without taking the time to consider any other possibilities or results of their actions. Thus, their logic couldn't kick in, and they wouldn't restrain their decision.
One possible postulate would be that our desires often do not work well into our lives on a daily business, so we must suppress our desires in order to maintain the normal life, or a simpler life that most do desire over following one's every whim and desire.
Then again, these are just my thoughts.
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United States23619 Posts
On April 19 2009 05:40 Descent wrote:
^If you stop desiring, are you really at peace, or are you more prone to apathy? I would think apathy...
Apathy and Peace do not contradict each other in any way. If anything, they support each other.
And furthermore, freedom from desire does not necessarily mean an elimination of goals or motivation.
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I do both overthink things and got a strong reliance on emotions.
The reason to that is because my childhood was just a huge mess so I got insecure and just tried to survive which lead to the emotionary drive. At the same time though the emotions tells me that everyone else is just a few words away from hating me which is why I started to think everything through all the time to guard against this.
The thing is though that without emotions everything lacks meaning, so you can't just cast them aside.
I mean, things like friendship isn't logical, to a certain degree it is of course but once people start to get attached to each other they start behaving irrationally and that is not something you can reason yourself to. So if you are like me with your emotions assuming that none ever can get attached to you it gets impossible to actually do anything about it.
I mean, semi temporary ones are easy to understand as a sort of trade, that is how I manage to survive, but as soon as I try to involve emotions in these kinds of things to try to attach I get the adverse effect since I they are broken.
Anyhow, I barely care about anything at all nowadays so the few times when I actually care about things I cherish it greatly and thus creating the semi impulse driven behavior. So it becomes impossible to plan years ahead since I actually don't have anything which I want to get done. I got some vague hint that it would be fun to revolutionize physics but that is more of a hobby to keep myself occupied rather than something I could live for.
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I used to recieve some comments similar to "you are thinking too much". Now after some time with help from some people ive started to understand a little more about the questions and my "thinking" but im too far away to have the full picture.
Under my actual experience theres a little flaw in the self questions you are proposing. Unfortunately im unable to explain that sentence at the moment and theres no way to explain it in a forum.
I cant debate about this but apathy and peace are pretty different to me in fact theres no similarity. I dont consider myself a bhuddist but this sentence is a way to put it "The one who knows doesn t talk, the one who talks doesn t know"
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Travis is a bhuddist so yea. Apathy and peace are basically the same thing imo.
I'm pretty apathetic to everything. It's kind of a curse and a blessing. I don't know exactly how I would feel if it happened (and knock on wood), but if my mom or someone in my immediate family died my life wouldn't change at all really and I don't think I would cry or grieve like most would.
A teenage-hood close friend and my grandpa died in the last few years and my uncle has terminal cancer right now and is on his way out. I feel no different. I dunno maybe it's a combination of me knowing that death is imminent for everything, life is pointless in the first place, and tons of people die every second-it seems selfish to stop for one just because I knew them. Like why not cry 24/7 because thousands of little black kids are starving and dying all day.
Anyways BoT, If someone (probably a girl) tells you that you think too much its because you're probably being a wuss in some form by overanalyzing a situation when in reality you should just go with occum's razor and make a decision and do it. Most social situations are really face up and not to be deeply dissected. Most people who have anxiety disorder are 'thinking too much' about every word or syllable or gesture and it just overwhlems them and freaks them out. Like think of a computer doing too many processes at once and it slows down and eventually crashes. Same thing with human brain imo.
PS- Does anyone always mix up the meanings of Murphy's law and Occum's razor like I do?
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promising title, I find this an interesting subject. Gonna read it now :D :p
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On April 19 2009 05:52 travis wrote:
And furthermore, freedom from desire does not necessarily mean an elimination of goals or motivation.
How do you define desire? Lacking desire to do something is the same thing as lacking any motivation for it, in the same way totally lacking desire means that you have no motivation for anything.
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I TOTALLY thought this was gonna be a blog on Hegel...
lol.
btw...a lot of what you say seems to be fairly idealistic Hollywood-ish morals. Don't try to project value, significance and importance onto things like that...there is no intrinsic reason why money would deny happiness. I know plenty of people who are fairly well off and are a lot happier than my broke ass.
I'm often told I think too much as well (I'm a philosophy major; I'm sure all philo majors get told that often). There's nothing wrong with it, but make sure you constantly bounce your ideas off of others. It's not good to just think and keep it all to yourself.
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United States23619 Posts
On April 19 2009 06:49 Klockan3 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 19 2009 05:52 travis wrote:
And furthermore, freedom from desire does not necessarily mean an elimination of goals or motivation. How do you define desire? Lacking desire to do something is the same thing as lacking any motivation for it, in the same way totally lacking desire means that you have no motivation for anything.
This is a good question. You are using desire synonymously with "aspiration". This is understandable as it is a possible interpretation of what the word means.
This is not the definition of desire I am using. The definition I am using would be closer to "craving".
Another way to view what I am saying would be that a decision based upon an objective view(what is best according to reason/logic) is not one fueled by desire. A decision based upon a subjective view(what you, the ego wants) is one fueled by desire.
In short, language isn't good enough to make this sort of thing easy 
If you do not understand what I mean I may be able to do a better job of explaining this.
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Like you say there are situations in which over thinking things does not help. The brain can only keep so many elements in conscious thought, and sometimes it is better to go with intuitive thinking which can obtain a larger overall grasp of the situation. But rather you are concerned with acting on impulses? Well, if that is all one is concerned with than you are present oriented perhaps to the extend of being hedonistic. And in fact, this is not the best way to live a good life. Like you mention, the ability to delay gratification plays a large role in ones success.
I'll just give you a few things to start with and you can get back to me on whatever if you want if you like.
http://ase.tufts.edu/cogstud/papers/selfctr.htm
www.mercystreet.org/CushmansEmptySelf.pdf
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/self-knowledge/
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United States23619 Posts
On April 19 2009 05:53 Klockan3 wrote:
The thing is though that without emotions everything lacks meaning, so you can't just cast them aside.
This is a provocative statement, IMO.
You say that without emotion there is no meaning. I say that everything has the same meaning with or without emotion. How you feel changes nothing about what is or is not really happening. Emotion is temporary delusion based on the desires of the ego.
When you are highly focused on a task, and for the time being you have become what you are doing, and then suddenly time has flew by and it is over - did those moments truly lack meaning? Is it not worth something? Is the up and down rollercoaster ride really preferable to clarity and emptiness?
Should one really want their life to be the continual chasing of highs and running away from lows? Or should we become dispassioned towards both and see things how they are without our selves in the picture.
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Hey guys, a lot of interesting replies. I'll make some general comments, and then try to reply to each person individually.
First, there are definitely some vague ideas in the closing part of the post. I want to bring you into what I think slowly, and I will eventually deal with a few of the things I mentioned, especially repressed desires. I hope nothing leading up to those questions was especially vague; if it was, please let me know.
I'm not writing this because I know - I'm writing precisely because I don't know. These are thoughts that can help you became more aware of truth: to be aware of truth, you must first become aware of yourself and the emotional distortions your perception casts on reality. This is well explained by Sam Keen in To A Dancing God:
Awareness of what presents itself to me involves a double shift of
attention: silencing the familiar and welcoming the strange. Each time I
approach a strange object, person, or event, I have a tendency to let
my present needs, past experience, or expectations for the future
determine what I will see. If I am to appreciate the uniqueness of any
datum, I must be sufficiently aware of my preconceived ideas and
characteristic emotional distortions to bracket them long enough to
welcome strangeness and novelty into my perceptual world. This
discipline of bracketing, compensating, or silencing requires
sophisticated self-knowledge and courageous honesty. Yet, without this
discipline each present moment is only the repetition of something
already seen or experienced. In order for genuine novelty to emerge,
for the unique presence of things, persons, or events to take root in
me, I must undergo a decentralization of the ego.
- Sam Keen. To A Dancing God. Harper & Row, 1970. p. 28
Travis
I don't think I expressed myself clearly. Let's take the first few questions together.
What makes us want to do things? What makes us productive?
I am asking these two questions from the perspective of: "I know I should subvert my urge to be lazy and do work, but I have no desire for that." You aptly said that what makes us want to do things is desire - and so I want to feel a desire to do these things. I have had experiences of this, of wanting to work, but I think they were ill-rooted. By letting go of desires and seeking truth, we can achieve a state of peace, so it is by feeling peace within ourselves that true will to work will emerge. Life is suffering - once we accept this, it is no longer suffering. This is what I work toward every day.
If I am not being clear, I will elaborate on this soon in a future post, as these ideas play a central role in my life. Still, having kept an eye on you for the past few years, I feel I understand where you are coming from, and I think you'll know what I mean.
About the unconscious mind - I truly do mean unconscious mind, by the Freudian definition. I think we can become aware of its existence and understand its influence on our actions. By bringing our unconscious thoughts into the conscious mind, we become aware of it, and in this process gain amazing insight.
Archaic
I know you meant the own OP thing as a joke - indeed, Travis is a keen individual, able to pinpoint flaws with great precision. However, the comment reflects a common tendency to avoid having your ideas challenged, and I want the complete opposite. I hope to be as wrong as possible in my thoughts; it will only make me grow more.
As for the analysis, it's a good estimate of thought processes. I want to be clear when I start talking about desires and repressed desires, so I'll leave it to another post to define and discuss that, if you don't mind.
Klockan3
Some cool ideas in here, kind of want to write something, but I have to think it through. Big thanks for sharing.
Malongo
Spot-on, man. I feel very clueless myself, and simply want to learn.
CharlieMurphy
I can understand where you're coming from, but there is a difference between conscious, loving awareness and detachment. It is wise to detach yourself from outside desires, but that does not mean you should stop loving. I don't mean you have to cry and grieve, either - that has nothing to do with love. It seems you do not love yourself and not actually nurture your own growth or that of those around you (I may be completely wrong, but think about it as though I'm completely right).
Also, I do not feel life is pointless, simply because I decide it's not.
I think you bring up a good example of "overthinking", and how that is a flawed representation of "overthinking". What creates anxiety is not the thinking part, but a feeling of being overwhelmed and helpless. I disagree, though, that most social situations are not to be deeply dissected. Most of your own decisions are likely to be face up, especially if you know what you want and what you value. Analyzing the simple decisions of others can shed light on their values and help you understand the workings and structure of society.
PH
They're definitely Hollywoodish morals, because I think a lot of us live in a Hollywoodish world. There is of course no reason why money would deny happiness, but that is not what I said. If money is a value (i.e.: something to strive for), it impedes happiness.
And bouncing ideas is obv. extremely important. This is the first time I write about these ideas online, but most of my thinking is done in real life with others.
Cheers guys, thanks for the comments.
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On April 19 2009 07:42 travis wrote:
I say that everything has the same meaning with or without emotion.
How do you define meaning? A human without emotions is nothing but a computer, are you saying that a computer can find meaning in things?
Everything people do, they do in order to chase a feeling. Feeling contempt is also an emotion and is also something people chases after, it might not be as hectic as some other are but they are still there.
On April 19 2009 07:42 travis wrote:
When you are highly focused on a task, and for the time being you have become what you are doing, and then suddenly time has flew by and it is over
Excitement is also an emotion.
On April 19 2009 07:26 travis wrote:
Another way to view what I am saying would be that a decision based upon an objective view(what is best according to reason/logic) is not one fueled by desire.
Well, if you do not have any desire for any effects of the outcomes you can't utilize reason to figure out which outcome would be the best.
The more you think the more you can relate to your future selves desires, what you are talking about is the act of just doing what seems best in a very small timeframe contra what is best in a very large timeframe.
But in the end it is the desire which made you do your choice.
Take the classical example of a good looking shallow wife vs a mediocre looking but more interesting one. The good looking might be an attractive choice for now but in a longer perspective the other one is better. But why is the other one better in the long term? Because interesting is more desirable than shallow according to most, so both choices are actually based on desire.
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I think we need to think more. Its because we don't think that much that's putting us into so much trouble.
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EPT
