On Thought
The combination of elements making a person a person are thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Each one of them is extraordinarily important in the sum total of who we are both within ourselves and to the outside world. Although it is impossible to say if one or the other carries a greater weight in our sense of being, there is a case to be made for thought.
Our thoughts are impressive. They are both very similar to the thoughts of our fellow humans, but they are ironically also completely unique. They can be building blocks which move from a simple idea into a highly developed concept often in a matter of moments. Yet they can also be fleeting and random and out of the blue.
Of the latter, some of our passing thoughts can be well-grounded in reality and the moment at hand, like when someone is talking about her dinner from the previous evening and it causes a desire to have spaghetti tonight. Others can be quite random such as when you are driving to the office and you recall a scene from the 1984 original version of Red Dawn. The interesting thing about thoughts is that I am recounting actual "thought events" which I have experienced. This may have happened to you, but I would be willing to bet that it was not spaghetti and it was not Red Dawn (it may not have even been a movie). Or maybe the external circumstances were similar, but the thoughts were nothing like what I described. Thoughts are simply so similar among us, but also so different!
As far as moving from thought to concept, that process can be unique and similar, too. I often share this thought to concept process with my psychology students through this story: Suppose you take your first psychology test and you make a grade of 40 on it. That is a terrible grade, but watch what easily happens. From the terrible grade you deduce you are likely going to fail the class. Because you are likely to fail the class (and this is not even a math or chemistry class, but simple psychology), you are likely not college material and you should therefore dropout and find a job. But how are you going to find a good paying job in this job market, especially without a college degree? So you will likely have to resort to something illegal like selling drugs. So you decide to do that, but knowing your luck, you will get caught on your first attempt and end up going to prison. Do you see what happened there? One little setback (failing a test) results in the worst possible outcome (going to prison). And look how quickly you got there! What seem to be rational thoughts can quickly evolve (or devolve) into irrational concepts. That is just one of the unique, but very universal, ways the mind works.
Thoughts are at the root of so much of who we are. Stay tuned as we tackle feelings next!
Our thoughts are impressive. They are both very similar to the thoughts of our fellow humans, but they are ironically also completely unique. They can be building blocks which move from a simple idea into a highly developed concept often in a matter of moments. Yet they can also be fleeting and random and out of the blue.
Of the latter, some of our passing thoughts can be well-grounded in reality and the moment at hand, like when someone is talking about her dinner from the previous evening and it causes a desire to have spaghetti tonight. Others can be quite random such as when you are driving to the office and you recall a scene from the 1984 original version of Red Dawn. The interesting thing about thoughts is that I am recounting actual "thought events" which I have experienced. This may have happened to you, but I would be willing to bet that it was not spaghetti and it was not Red Dawn (it may not have even been a movie). Or maybe the external circumstances were similar, but the thoughts were nothing like what I described. Thoughts are simply so similar among us, but also so different!
As far as moving from thought to concept, that process can be unique and similar, too. I often share this thought to concept process with my psychology students through this story: Suppose you take your first psychology test and you make a grade of 40 on it. That is a terrible grade, but watch what easily happens. From the terrible grade you deduce you are likely going to fail the class. Because you are likely to fail the class (and this is not even a math or chemistry class, but simple psychology), you are likely not college material and you should therefore dropout and find a job. But how are you going to find a good paying job in this job market, especially without a college degree? So you will likely have to resort to something illegal like selling drugs. So you decide to do that, but knowing your luck, you will get caught on your first attempt and end up going to prison. Do you see what happened there? One little setback (failing a test) results in the worst possible outcome (going to prison). And look how quickly you got there! What seem to be rational thoughts can quickly evolve (or devolve) into irrational concepts. That is just one of the unique, but very universal, ways the mind works.
Thoughts are at the root of so much of who we are. Stay tuned as we tackle feelings next!
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