on thinking one's thoughts

[mamajoan]

While replying on this thread, I was reminded of a guy I used to date (my second and last boyfriend ever) and how, when we talked on the phone, he used to constantly ask me "what are you thinking right now?" That was soooo annoying, because I felt such pressure to have been thinking something deep and meaningful (I was in college -- everything feels like it needs to be deep and meaningful!). I often made stuff up ... but then, maybe I wasn't exactly making it up, because how often are you ever thinking just one thing at a time? On the surface your main thoughts might be about the phone conversation and how sore your ear is getting (we used to talk for a LONG time) and the person you're talking to, but underneath you're also thinking about the reading you have to do, the paper to write, what's for dinner, whether you're afraid to die, why the sky is blue, etc. etc. ... there's always so much going on in the human brain at any one time. (Was just re-reading what Terry Pratchett has to say about this in Witches Abroad.)

But so often it's hard to pin down any one of those lines of thought, they're almost more like feelings/emotions than actual thoughts, so you can't really put them into words. But as a young, insecure, pretentious college student, you sure as hell try. And then it comes out sounding stupid, and you feel stupid and wish he would frickin' stop asking you what you're thinking. :)