At too many points in my life, much of my energy has been spent trying not to think about a certain something, usually a someone. The reasons for this are varied, but fall into three basic categories; unhealthy anticipation (mostly justified), unhealthy anxiety (both justified and unjustified), and unhealthy infatuation (almost exclusively unjustified). Call it mental masochism or subconscious sadism, but I find that I am constantly battling with my mind to slow the hell down and focus on the task at hand (and if no task is at hand, I focus on my default: puppies). Yet despite my constant attempts to non-do this nega-thing, only recently has it become apparent to me that the pursuit of such an un-goal, besides being emotionally insurmountable, is a complete and utter logical impossibility.
Once you set your mind to not think about something, you are, in the process of setting your mind, doing the very thing you set out not to do. That is, thinking about that thing. A setback, you think. A minor setback. So you clear your mind, ready it for the world, not thinking about it — and there you did it again. In not thinking about it, you thought about it. Nonetheless, you plug on, thinking about this thing and another thing, thankfully not about that thing. And just when you realize that — wham! That has crept back to the torture pit that is your brain, manifesting itself as a lachrymal emission, a light convulsion, a comedic essay.
Well, friends, I must thank you, for the entire time I spent composing this Thought, I never once thought about –… Ah, but once again the paradox manifests itself. Unfortunately I now have a new item to try to suppress; if the majority of my mental time is spent in futile attempts at active non-thoughts, don’t I myself become a futile active non-thought? I think it does. Though I wish I didn’t.