In general, I have a lot of things on my mind. This is kind of typical for me, for better or worse. I feel like I think about everything, all of the time.1 Sometimes I start to feel claustrophobic inside my head; I can’t find much escape from all of this “everything,” even when I am doing stuff that’s supposed to bring me some quietude. Instead, those quiet times often make “everything” harder to ignore.
I have figured out some ways to deal with this and am mostly able to function more-or-less like everyone else. As far as I know, this might be normal, what I am describing is how everyone is. I asked my wife about this, and she says she is like this—to a point—as well, so I suppose this might be somewhat normal. But, as we were talking, I think she was interpreting this as a difficulty staying “in focus” while doing a task, which is a major part of what I experience, but there is more to it as well. There is a certain amount of my experience that is dominated by unwelcome, persistent thoughts about things from the past and thoughts about other people’s thoughts that I can’t seem to shake.
Past Regrets?
One of the foremost things that intrudes into my head is thoughts about past conversations and interactions. I am almost constantly analyzing previous conversations. I can remember, almost word for word, several semi-contentious conversations, and I think about them over and over and over. Sometimes I think, “I should have said x!” or, “I can’t believe s/he said y!” And I re-litigate the conversation almost daily. Ditto for nearly every other conversation that left me less than satisfied.
Are these regrets of mine? Do I regret something about the conversation? Probably. There are certain ones that come up in my head over and over. I could be riding my bike or playing a gig or surfing, all things completely divorced from said conversation, and in slips my thoughts about what was/wasn’t said, about what that means, about how I am now (or was then) perceived. It’s tiring and it tends to ruin lots of things.
Rent-Free Residents
Right now, and for the last long time, there are a couple of people who seem to be “living rent free inside my head.” In each case, these are people I know, some of them are even “friends,” whom I can’t get out of my head. Right now I am thinking about two guys I know. The way they’ve treated me/talked to me in the semi-recent past (repeatedly) bothers me everyday. I don’t talk to them often, yet my brain brings them into my consciousness several times a day. I can’t help but think “What do they think of me?” “Why did I/they say that thing two years ago?” “How can they have just said that and moved on?” “I wonder if I said x if that would have smoothed things over better?” “But, that thing they said was so pompous and presumptuous!” And on and on.
These guys, ’cause of course they are guys, live in my head, taking up space. I don’t want them there. I want to not care. But the fact is, I do and I think about them all the time. I actually wouldn’t mind just being rid of the blowhards, know-it-alls, holier-than-thous, and other energy sucks, but, again, my head keeps them around seemingly no matter how hard I try.
“Who cares what other people think?”
I know that lots of people are probably saying something like, “Who cares what these other people think? Just live your life.” And I wish I could. I want to be able to do just that, but right now, my brain says over and over, “What about … ?”
To be blunt, I can’t even really fathom how anyone can truly “not care” what other people are thinking. Some of that feels extremely selfish … to not care what is going through other people’s heads seems to suggest that you don’t care anything about other people, their thoughts, their feelings … yet it is also extremely selfish of me to think about me and how they feel about me all the time.
So?
I am not exactly sure where all of this is going. This is the first time in a long time that I am feeling enough clarity to write anything of length. I used to enjoy writing, but I find it hard to find time, energy, and—most of all—the mental acuity to be coherent in a long-form format. It is kind of mind-boggling to me that I once wrote a 300+ page PhD dissertation. I can’t hardly squeak out a few hundred words anymore, even on a good day. Everything is so damn crowded in my head. Everything. All of the time.
Here, I’m alive! ↩︎