“You overthink things Jay” they say.
You waste too much time analysing. Tearing things apart with your scrutiny. You think too much.
But what is too much exactly? What is overthinking? How can that possible? We’re taught from when we are very young that we should always think about our actions before enacting them, but I’m told that I overthink. I think so much that I never get to the doing part. But still overthinking is something that I can’t quite reconcile.
Do I overthink? Is this very blog-post ironic? Overthinking as I type, even now? I can’t say. I can only wonder who it is that decides what is too much. When does a normal amount of thinking become thinking about something in excess? Where is the scale that has been carefully crafted to tell me when I should stop, when I should let things go, let them slip from my mind?
We are conditioned by society to be lazy thinkers. To go through life asking no questions. To just accept things as they are. To believe, or rather to “know” that this is the status quo. This is how it always has been. This is the way things are run, decided by someone bigger than yourself. To accept the pseudo-facts we are spoon fed by the news and the media and to just swallow. Swallow it all, accept it all, live it, live by it, live in it.
I don’t want to be a lazy thinker. I don’t want to feel ashamed every time I ask why or how or what. I don’t want to live in a world where nothing is contested. Where people feel ashamed to question. Where no one wants to question. Where people are happy to live in ignorance. Apathy hurts me. I don’t want to live in a world of lazy thinkers.
Every day I am faced with fallacy. With people saying things that just aren’t logical. I am expected to accept them and move on. To get on with life and not care.
I’m not the sort of person who can stop myself from caring. People mistake my efforts to correct them as offence. They say I am being arrogant, or that I am overthinking things that are simple. I find that so few things in this world are simple when you lend them a bit of thought. There is very little black and white in the vibrant colour palette that is life.
I try to let things go, to let them wash over me. Wind through my hair and out the window. But it doesn’t work that way, not for me at least. My mind buzzes with the beat. It vibrates with questions. I want to know more, I want to understand, I want to help if I can.
They say the darkest of deeds come from the best of intentions. Is the way I am acceptable? Is it right to be this way. Is it ok to always question? Are there times when things are better off left alone? Is it right to be the kind of person who is ready with an opinion, a different angle, another viewpoint, a question unthought of, for almost anything? It is only fair that I hold myself under the same magnifying glass I hold everything under.
This magnifying glass weighs great deal. It’s a burden to hold, a burden to bare. And not something easily cast aside. But for every ugly thing you get a closer look at, there is also something beautiful. For every time the glare hurts your eyes, there is a time where it brings light into the world. I’m happy with this magnifying glass, despite however many people tell me I overthink.
Ramblings Of A Somewhat Sane Jay 