The Burden of Thought

I think I might be losing my mind. While this will come as no surprise to those who believe the event actually occurred many years ago and simply went unnoticed by its owner, others may wonder how the very mind used to evaluate its own evaporation can be trusted to inform others of the condition.

Fortunately, there's an elegant solution to this problem which involves, of course, the act of Thinking Without Assessing, or TWA for short.

Analogous to the sorcerer's technique of gazing without staring mentioned in many of Carlos Castaneda's books, TWA permits the mind to reach grand conclusions without the burden of thought. This is of particular value in situations such as my own, where every contemplation is equally suspect. To illustrate, I offer an actual example taken from a recent internal dialogue.

Mind: "Nobody loves me."

Mind: "That's not true. People do love you."

Mind: "No they don't. If they did, they'd kiss me."

Mind: "That's ridiculous. People don't just go around kissing everyone. They'd go to jail."

Mind: "I don't care. They should kiss me anyway. That's how I'd know."

Mind: "I think somebody needs a nap."

Mind: "Okay. Will you give me a nappy-nite kiss?"

Mind: "Absolutely not. Besides, there's no such thing as a nappy-nite kiss."

Mind: "Why do you hate me so much?"

Mind: "Oh good grief. I don't hate you!"

Mind: "Do you love me?"

Mind: "Let's just say I think the world of you."

Mind: "You hate me!"

Mind: "Okay, okay, okay. I love you."

Mind: "Kiss me?"

Mind: "No! I will not kiss you!"

Mind: "I hate you."

Mind: "I hate you, too."

This is exactly the sort of thought process that cries out for TWA. As you will see, applying our Thinking Without Assessing technique to the previous dialogue not only speeds things up, but results in a far more reliable conclusion.

Mind: "Nobody loves me."

Mind: "I know."