Thinking About Thinking

Thinking about Thinking

I’ll start by saying I’m not special. I’m not highly intelligent or gifted. I’m not a biochemical engineer, business mogul, or world-renowned artist, I’m just a big jackass who thinks too much. This isn’t a poem, it’s just me rambling, so feel free to ignore it. But the older I get the more grateful I am for my habit of overthinking. The more I dive into Nietche’s theory on secularization, the overwhelming complexity and infinity of the cosmos, and the absurd fact that every single one of us is absolutely full of shit, the better I feel. It may not seem a positive realization that we’re all coopted by our own grand belief systems (be them theological or ideological) which quietly govern all of our decisions even unbeknownst to ourselves and which we only ever challenge when a suitable enough trauma arrives to shake us into reconsidering our innermost workings. But I’d challenge you to sit in it for a while. Consider what it means that we’re all lost. Let it sink in that all of us are equally unaware, unprepared, and unequipped. None of us have the answers beyond the immediate moment, and many of us lack even that. Then consider how unbelievably idiotic it is that we choose to engage in ridiculous online arguments about topics we know nothing about, espousing ideas and rhetoric which the better part of us knows aren’t even our own thoughts but simply the ones funneled into us by the culture that raised us. We live in a Godless, faithless, disillusioned period of human history, disabused of any sense of normalcy. And I’m grateful for it. They tell us the sky is falling and we simply shrug; or perhaps we wait for it to crush us so we can be sure “they” were telling the truth in the first place. Ultimately, I don’t have an answer for any of this. Like you, I’m just another head full of useless information trying and failing to make sense of it all. But I’d say, if anything, be positive. Don’t obsess over the meaninglessness of life, be grateful that you live at all. Don’t envy those you perceive as being above you, admire them for what they accomplished and then be better than them. And when complex solutions fail, settle for platitudes no matter how reductive. But in the end, whether you choose it or not, you’re already part of this. Part of the absurdity. Part of the nothing. Even when you go, your genetic material will live on in everyone and everything that is to come. You are literally, physically, chemically, and spiritually a combination of the past, present, and future. And while you might never grace the big screen, blaze from the speakers, or move someone to tears with your words, you still left your mark no matter who you are. So, I guess I’m just trying to say, thanks for being here.

- Adam J Marcon