Deja Pense
I think. Why I think what I think when I think it I just don’t know.
Sometimes I think that I want to. At these times I will sit still in my recliner for a while and try to think nothing. Nothing I guess can’t be thought. Because as soon as I think to myself to think about nothing I’ll think: of thinking about nothing. Then I’ll think that if it is truly I that thinks then I should be able to not think.
Then I think of myself laughing at myself. Simply because I’ve thought that I don’t think anything before. Trying to think nothing – it never works. So I’ll resign myself to knowing that thoughts are in fact independent of my own I and the best I can do is treat them like I would any physical observation: it interests me or it doesn’t. I’ll relax my mind and any thought that comes to me I’ll view as a perception in my mind’s eye. When another thought comes to me I’ll let the first thought fade away to perceive the next. As this goes on thoughts begin to grow in detail; first only pictures followed by the additions of sounds. Then heat or cold, smells, wind or lack thereof, and so on.
Eventually as this goes on in my mind’s eye I will have a thought – in my thought – to follow the thought as the thought is too pleasing to let fade away into the next thought. The thoughts I will decide to follow as opposed to let fade away change but have one thing in common: they fully portray all the detail of life to the extent that they even trigger emotions within my soul.
But I do not linger on these emotions I’ll ask of the thought instead: why has this thought come to me?
Sometimes a thought will answer: it’s because I saw or heard something that I wasn’t fully aware of that triggered a memory of what the thought is now. I am merely trying to fully cognize a perception which I haven’t yet had a chance to cognize.
Other times a thought will not answer so I’ll ask of the thought: where did you come to me from?
Here I come as close to truly not thinking anything as I’ve ever come before: when I’m sitting still in my recliner waiting for a thought to answer. This stillness will exist for varying amounts of time until eventually a thought comes to me: but what the thought is I can never seem to remember I can only ever recall that it came from over there.
I never seem to question where over there is as when this thought comes to me it comes without causing any emotion in my soul. Instead I simply decide to follow the thought over there and this deciding stirs a force – which for lack of a better word I’ll call willing – and this willing to follow the thought creates motion. This motion is swift and directed to a specific place. But exactly how I arrive at this place I can never remember; my mind it seems will outpace my memory.
I do know that wherever this domain of thoughts is I do not stay for long: however long it takes for my memory to catch up with my mind. As soon as my memory does catch up it reminds me that I’m afraid of heights.
I’m too far up. The memory of the fear that I possess in my soul then further reminds me that I’m afraid of heights.
I’m too far up! I don’t want to be this high up! My fear becomes a motion and I begin to fall backwards. Faster and faster and I’ll try to turn to see where I’m falling but I can never seem to turn.
The feeling of fear grows in my soul until I no longer fear falling but fear that I’m falling to my death. But just as soon as I accept the certainty of death a thought comes to me: if I jump just before I hit the land of the living it may lessen the force of my impact.
I think if I jump I may survive. So as I’m falling I try to jump back towards the land of the thinking. Jump. I need to jump.
Jump!
I never land on my feet. To be perfectly honest my aim simply sucks too: I always miss my recliner and end up lying next to it on the floor. My hearts racing and I’m gasping for air.
I’ll lie there on the floor and think that perhaps it would be best if I just didn’t think anything.
I recognize immediately that I’ve thought that I don’t think anything before.