Thinking About Thinking

If this doesn't convince you that I'm strange, then I'll concede defeat.
But I still refuse to join the ranks of normal folk.
I'm having entirely too much fun for that!

"A mind is a terrible thing to waste."

I don't know who said that but I've always liked it. It's got a nice ring to it. I'd like to think I haven't wasted mine; not if using it incessantly counts anyway. Although, if they (those unknowns who judge such things) judge use in terms of quality rather than quantity, I might not score so highly, but at least I'm always in there trying.

Someone told me once (a guy, of course) that my whole problem was that I think too much. I didn't believe it then, when he said it, and I don't believe it now, but I have thought about it a lot since, and why I don't think it's true.

Mainly I don't think it's true because he didn't really want me to stop thinking. He just wanted me to shut up. You see, I was trying to get him to think about things that he didn't want to think about. You know -- personal stuff -- like, do you think our relationship has a problem?

Besides, isn't that what your mind is for? To think with? How can a person expect to grow and improve, if they don't think about stuff? But mostly I don't believe it's true because I don't believe it's possible -- not to think, that is. At least, it's not possible for me.

Maybe that's what's wrong with most men. They don't think. Well, to be truly fair, they do think -- some. I think I'll go fishing. I think I'll have another beer. I think I'm horny. Yes, I know, I'm probably pushing it a bit with that last one. That one they don't have to think about. They're always horny! But you see what I mean.

I, however, think all the time. About everything. I always have. Some of the stuff I think about is very important to me like: Why am I here? What is the meaning of Life? What/Who is God? And some of the things I think about, I suppose you could say, are just silly like: Why doesn't the wind blow radio signals away? Why won't my AM radio play in a tunnel but my CB radio will? Actually, I do know part of the answer to that one because I asked someone once. AM radio waves are bigger, so they don't fit in tunnels. But that just made me wonder: If they're so big, then why is an AM antenna smaller? Why don't radio waves bump into trees and rocks and get all jumbled up? How do they get the words on the waves, anyway? Do they look like this...

What holds the words on? Why don't the words get out of order if I turn a corner or hit a bump? What do you suppose the air would look like if we could see them? Are there animals that can see them? What happens to the waves when I'm done listening to them? Do they just wander around until they die? Do they die? Or are they still there, waiting to be heard again, if someone would just invent a radio that has a time tuner instead of a frequency tuner?

Can you see what I mean about thinking a lot? Sure, I could go look up the answers to all these questions in the library, but I don't. Sometimes I wonder why I don't go, because I really would like to know some of the answers. But, then again, I also think it's just fun to think about silly things -- or to think about things in a silly way -- and if I knew all the answers, maybe it wouldn't be fun any more.

Thinking silly stuff is even necessary for me, sometimes, like when I'm bored, or feeling a little down, or just stuck doing something that uses my hands but leaves my mind free -- like driving to work, for instance. It's easy to use up half an hour of commute time picturing announcers voices weaving in and out, up and down, around branches and rocks and houses. Do some of the words take the long way around an obstacle and have to race to catch up? Was that bit of static I just heard the sound a word makes when it bumps into something? Do you suppose that somewhere there are insects who can hear radio waves and are humming along with the latest top-40 tunes? Do they shake their heads at the news broadcasts? Do you think they chuckle at the ineptitude of our weather forecasters? Can they change stations? Or are they stuck having to listen to whichever one they were born tuned-in to? Are Praying Mantis' born tuned-in to religious stations? See all the fun I'd have missed if I'd gone to the library to find out how radio waves really work?

Then, there are those things that can't be looked up, like those important questions about Me and Life and God. When I think about it in that context, maybe I wouldn't go look those up either, even if I could, because they're just as much fun to think about. Maybe it's as simple as that. That's all we're here for. To think about why we're here. I wouldn't mind, really, if that were the case. I think I could say I've accomplished that much.

As you can see, I get great joy from taking a thought or idea and running with it to see where it goes. Seriously, or foolishly, it doesn't really matter. It's not the destination that counts, but the route taken -- the more scenic the better, preferably. I'll bet the same could be said of life, if you think about it.