Catchy thoughts

Every day, and indeed even while I’m sleeping, I have thousands of thoughts — recollections of the past, projections about the future, narrative about what is happening right now, speculative imaginings about things that might happen or could have happened or would probably never happen but here I am thinking about it, analyses of other thoughts or concepts or events, and various images or scenarios that may or may not have happened in a “real” sense. I’m sure there are many other sub-types and combinations of thoughts—this is just a sampling.

Many of these thoughts I forget almost immediately. This is true even for thoughts that seem incredibly urgent in the moment. After they happen, they disappear and are lost forever, back in the swirl of substrata from which thoughts arise.

But some thoughts catch.

These thoughts, or images, or projections are sticky. Often coalesced into one word or a phrase that is then tied up immediately with an emotional reaction of some kind, they boomerang with continued effect, persistence, and importance. Frequently, they are attached to a fear and demand attention, not to address the fear per se, but simply to remember it.

It seems to be a phenomenon (for me at least, and I am human) that the catchiest thoughts are the ones that remind us most of mortal danger. Or at least, that which some part of ourselves believes to be mortal danger.

Another characteristic of these catchy thoughts is that they are the ones that I am the least eager to have. Acceptance and commitment therapy would say that the reason they come back is because I refuse to have them, making them even more persistent—the deprecation warnings that clog up more and more of the DevTools console. They demand to be addressed. Or, at least, to be heard.

I’m going to end this blog post now. I know this is not a good ending, but I’ll forget that thought almost immediately after I publish, because I am not afraid of an unsatisfying blog post ending.