I want to know how to think. I want to train my mind in a useful way so that my thinking is a constructive process. I am tired and exhausted with my messy thinking methods.

Yes, my thinking is an untidy business. I am doing it all the time, but I am unaware of its taking place in any coherent way. I remember asking my mother when I was about five how to think. She told me that we think all the time. It comes naturally, as sentient beings (she probably didn’t use the word sentient). Well, it concerns me that I am constantly doing something that I don’t understand and that seems so ineffectual and doesn’t do very much for me.

My inner conversations are haphazard and incomplete. I have a one sided voice that constantly doubles back and questions itself  and doesn’t come up with any solutions. My thoughts conjure up images in my mind that then disappear within seconds in a blurry mess. I don’t know if I ever a complete a line of thought. I think Rodin’s ‘The Thinker’ is completely inaccurate. My thought patterns are more like a Picasso, full of lines, figures, bends, and shapes with a splash of colour here and there.

Now, I don’t want to appear stupid. Of course, if I have an objective, like at work or cleaning house, I can develop a strategy. I can plan a course of action. I can do linear, sequential planning. I am good at ideas and making connections. I like people and ideas and conversation. But my abstract, alone thinking is messy.

My thinking feels sluggish, like some amorphous body, a slow crawling insect or maybe an octopus thinking with its tentacles. I blindly thrash and grasp at intangible and far stretched, contorted ideas. I try to straighten them out, turn them into lines of text that I can read and turn into a strategy. But then I forget the thought altogether and I find myself swimming, or cooking or cleaning the floor.

No my cogitating isn’t pretty and is completely untrained. I find my inner wishes trying to manipulate my thinking. My dreams interfere and kidnap my thoughts. I find I try to weave my thinking from the fabric of my desires. Then, I have to guillotine those thoughts and do something.

Maybe I cannot think clearly because I am a doer. Do I like to do because it distracts my thinking? I don’t know. I cannot think about it now. Let me know what you think.