Thoughts, Thinking of Thoughts, and “Overthinking-Inspired” Poetry

“I like to play with words” – My reply when people ask me if I’m a poet. 

I enjoy thinking about things. Concrete things. Ethereal things. Life-threatening things. Trivial things. If left alone, I could stare for hours and hours at a single falling leaf, an ant, a car stuck in a traffic jam, an airplane, and numerous boisterously glaring city lights.

(I have even willingly let a mosquito bite me because I found it fascinating to examine how this delicate winged insect went about sucking my blood.) 

I am aware I sound like a disturbed, autistic, antisocial, and clinically depressed introvert. Perhaps I am all of the above. Perhaps I am none of these ‘labels’. Titles obfuscate matters far too much anyway. The simple rendition is that I find great pleasure and amazement in observing things and imagining a story I can interlace around them. Solitude does not inconvenience me in the least bit when I have nothing to do. It only disturbs me when there are thoughts in my head that are troubling me since those thoughts, never, never leave my mind and will constantly manifest themselves the moment they have a chance to do so. Usually, until I find a new home for them, these plethoras of thoughts remain my unwelcome travel companions.

I should note that I never “decide” to overthink. It has become a way of life for me; one I have painfully tried to cope with. And in general, I have not been able to eradicate it from my life. As such, my tendency to overthink, for a long time, only succeeded in constantly burdening and overwhelming me. 

That said, and since I could not stop my thoughts, I decided to fully splurge and allow myself to explore these things I found myself thinking about. This experiment of mine yielded two rather strange findings as I discovered: I think in images; I think in stories. 

I would often be sitting with family, friends, or colleagues, and receive constant remarks along the lines of “where have you let your mind wander?” I would not even notice that I had absentmindedly drifted off again. Distracting as this was, I felt there must be some benefit I could get out of it. I decided to write some of my thoughts down. I carried my moleskin notebook and black pen with me everywhere I went. And so it began. 

When I saw cars, I thought of who the drivers were, where they were coming from, and where they were headed. When I saw airplanes, I thought of what a passenger was leaving behind, what he was looking forward to, and if he even considered the possibility that there was a 20-smth-year-old thinker looking up to the sky thinking about him, his life-choices, and wondering about the destination of his flight. When I saw all the beautiful city lights before I went to sleep, I thought of the people who lived in all of these houses. Why were their lights still on? Why weren’t they sleeping? Was something wrong? Were they happy?

The result of my experiment was unexpectedly rewarding: The more I jotted random thoughts and observations down, the more I found I was in possession of an untold fragmented story: A story I had to weave myself with emaciated pieces of unconnected yarn. And here was the silver lining: To find the relation between all of these random manifestations, images, and thoughts, all I had to do was think. 

I became a poet. Not out of volition, but coercion.

Somehow, there was the belief that if I got the thoughts down on paper, they would leave me alone. With my demons and bullies frolicking on a blank sheet, my brain was exorcised. Thought-free. And for a fleeting amount of time: Sane.

The writing process was one I enjoyed greatly. Once my notebook was filled with random words and musings, I would go back to it, scrutinize my unrelated scribbled expressions, and think patiently about how I could slowly transition in and out of them the same way my thoughts percolate in and out of my own mind. Each poem I wrote would be one I would revise into several drafts and still consider incomplete. I would even sometimes forget about my working-drafts for almost a week or two, and only revisit them again when I’d be sure I could approach them with a virgin mind. This is perhaps because minds too, can be raped. Anything is possible when thoughts viciously force themselves, and begin penetrating. 

I had days where I stared at a blank sheet for hours and produced no work. Similarly, I also had days where I woke up at 4am because I had a great idea I. Could. Not. Stop. Thinking about. This blog post is one of those things. And now that my document is bordering on four pages, I find myself thinking about how I should wrap things up and stop thinking already. 

Psychologically speaking, I could be diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive and/or Anxiety Disorder. Linguistically speaking, I could be referred to as a collector of thoughts, images, and contemplations. Either way, I have come to realize that irrespective of which definition applies to me:

If you stare at it long and hard enough, is there anything more fascinating than a single leaf, stone, fly, or even granule of sand?

N.B: I was nominated to give a TEDx talk on the 23rd of August, 2014. The idea I write about and discuss here is the one that I later on developed and presented as my TEDxLAU talk. In order to watch my full talk "Let's Overthink Overthinking" click here.

Skepticism and The Art of Teaching

“If you clung to the truth, even against the whole world, you weren’t mad” ~ George Orwell 

Even now, even after I’ve repeatedly reassured myself that I was going to do this against all odds, I still feel hesitant about expressing some of the thoughts incestuously in-breeding inside my head as they iconoclastically chew away at my politely “people-pleasing” masque.

This is perhaps because of the delicate and somewhat controversial nature of what it is that I feel compelled to write about: How my own life as a skeptic (otherwise known as a Heathen, Infidel, Heretic, and Apostate to all monotheistic religions out there) has ultimately forever shaped the way I see and think about things.

Let me start off with the following disclaimer: I am not being paid to do this. I am not being threatened into doing this. There is no reward. There are no retributions – well, none besides the caustic remarks and self-inflicted danger that I am fully aware I am subjecting myself to.

My reason for doing this is simple: I find not just wisdom, but also great humility in going about life questioning everything, and never stopping at any red lines that might surface; be they religion, god(s), the universe, science, or otherwise. As such, and because I cannot help but pause each time I encounter critical/argumentative flaws and inconsistencies that I am not able to reconcile with what the rules of logic dictate, I decided I must find a “quarantine” or “playground” for these fallacies; one which enables me to highlight their outrageous and totalitarian essences. 

This outlet, I have found to be teaching.

Often, students wrongly assume that all their peers understand exactly what they mean simply because, well, why wouldn’t they assume “home” is “mum and dad” and “happiness” is “success”? Why on earth would they believe that “home” could be a person, and “happiness” - perhaps in more macabre and morbid terms - the lack or absence of trauma?

Applying Freud’s Free Association technique quickly breaks the ice as I ask each of my students to quickly tell me how he/she would define the terms. The result is magical: Each and every time, my class is taken aback as students suddenly become aware of the plethora of meanings that can be contained in a word (and wasn’t it Alice herself who, once immersed in her wonderland, noted how “words can mean anything you want them to mean"?).

Like religion, there are too many “truths”. Unlike religion, we can “choose” the right one, after a tedious and meticulous screening process.

Like religion, many “truths” have been dictated and imposed upon us since birth. Unlike religion, we can dispel incongruous meanings, compress some meanings, and even expand other new meanings to a whole different horizon.

I teach my students to never assume their peers share the same background, religion, and ethnicity as them.

I teach my students to never assume their peers have the same beliefs, morals, and opinions as they do.

I teach my students to never assume I understand what they’re talking about or why or how they’re talking about the thing they’re talking about.

I teach my students to ground their answers in evidence.

I teach my students to give me reasons for all of their claims.

I teach my students that although a thesis can be formulaically broken down into: Thesis = claim + reasons, the omission of reasons renders a thesis an opinion and not a claim. And while claims can be argued, opinions cannot.

I teach my students about black, white, and gray reasoning: If they are not able to define what something is, I teach my students to start the process in reverse by first defining what it is not. If they cannot think of “why?” I teach my students to think instead of “why not?”

I teach my students that with faith, justification is often circuitous: “I believe because I have faith <=> I have faith because I believe”. However, with argumentation, justification is linear: “I believe in A because of X, Y, and Z”.

I do not brainwash my students; I teach them to meta-think. About everything. Including my own teaching. I have realized that the student-teacher relationship need not be a mundane and repetitive spoon-feeding. On the contrary, the most intriguing and enriching discussions often flourish when ideas mesh and discordantly refract in second, third, and even fourth dimension planes. 

Naturally, I have my own views (about practically everything), but I teach my students that all opinions can be subject to change; including my own. This is, of course, so long as compelling reasons and arguments ensue. 

I teach my students that no topic should be handled with oven-mittens (a Richard Dawkins reference I believe): If it’s worth discussing, it’s worth criticizing; even if it comprises our ‘oh-so-delicate’ pillars of belief.

Ultimately, I teach my students to be full-fledged skeptics irrespective of how this impacts their religious views. My concern is in-so-far as it is related to seeing them critically think, question, and support any and all of their thoughts, views, claims, and arguments.

I have put this strategy of mine to the test, and I have seen it work. Even the most religious among my students are embracing, and dare I say, enjoying questioning everything before blindly including them in their work. This is something that I surely appreciate; regardless of whether or not it does end up shaping their more personal convictions.

I am not afraid of voicing my opinions out loud anymore. Indeed, it is true that the world is filled with beautiful wonders but, and as Douglas Adams articulated so eloquently: “Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?”

I have my disbelief. You can have your fairies. Think I’m wrong? Great.

Convince me.