We can't stop thinking

To many, this isn’t news. But to many it is. It was for my very intelligent grandfather when, seven years ago, when he was 96, I told him this. We didn’t speak much more about it, but I think considering that he was a very curious person all the way to his death, he must have found this fascinating. Thinking about it, I wish that I would have followed up the discussion some more. We could have probably had a very i interesting talk about it. But sadly, this was before I started to realise just how unconsciously I was approaching many thing in my life.

But I’m getting off track here. Maybe there is a point to getting off track sometimes though. 

What I want to get at, is that we have this constant wordmachine going on in our heads, that also generates diffuse images, sounds, songs, scenes etcetera. And for a long time, I more or less unconsciously assumed that I was this wordmachine, without giving much conscious thought to how it functioned. Or why it was there and did what it did. I even, again mostly unconsciously, assumed that I was in control of it. 

I believe that the above description of my thoughts is more or less true of most people. And the more I think of this, the more interesting (and also a bit frightening) I think that it is. To repeat: We have a constant wordmachine etc. in our heads that we unconsciously assume is us, and this is something that many people go through their whole lives without reflecting upon. With this reasoning in mind, I want to conclude with a question: Do you or don’t you think that thoughts play a significant role in shaping our actions and lives?