views from a power overthinker [lifestyle]

Over time, pursuits ebb and movement, as do the questions that encompass them. Being a philosophy main, it’s in my nature to query something and all the things that comes my means. I ponder about occurrences as massive because the blizzards that enveloped Brown’s campus this semester, a private assault in opposition to this Midwesterner who grew up bombarded with damaging temperatures. Other moments—as small because the glint in somebody’s eye as I move them on the road, or the dainty swaying of the bushes whereas strolling to class, nearly as in the event that they’re ushering all the scholars to congregate on the Main Green—increase comparable questions for me. At events, I’m the one to face to the aspect and ponder the true which means of life and the way this explicit expertise accounts for the general established order of the world whereas folks yell, dance, and play beer pong. At least I feel I’m. This final assertion appears to sum up nearly all of the thought processes that frequently cycle by way of my head. Maybe that’s what life is meant to quantity to: discovering what it’s by residing it.

The relation between expertise and evaluation has all the time been difficult for me. Maybe there isn’t a underlying which means behind the rain that showers itself into oblivion, whereas I, too, trudge by way of ensuing rivers on the road, feeling the load of my duties, actions, and place on the planet. Maybe the road between principle and actuality have blurred for me—how issues theoretically needs to be put into place versus the way in which they scramble, nearly comically disordered, into their positions on the planet. Are my expectations too excessive for my actuality? Do I spend an excessive amount of time within the universe I’ve crafted in my head and slowly, nearly subconsciously, turn out to be out of contact with that which pans out round me?

Another frequent matter of power overthinking is different folks’s perceptions/opinions of you, one thing of which I’ve had my truthful psychological share. Case in level: I’ve a definite reminiscence from third grade of being satisfied that the group of boys buying and selling Pokémon playing cards was secretly conspiring in opposition to me. Only by wanting again with the knowledge of an nearly 20-year-old, can I see that maybe this pseudo Pokemon card membership didn’t have any ulterior motives in opposition to me and my shiny inexperienced Creek Valley Elementary School Carnival T-shirt. Perhaps they in truth didn’t hear me once I choked out one thing akin to “dyew wantdkra trfe wifme” (in my head, it seemed like a transparent “Want to trade cards with me?”), purposely not making eye contact with any of them. Similarly, perhaps the cashier on the grocery retailer didn’t assume it was enormously awkward once I fumbled in my bag for what felt like eons earlier than realizing I had left my coupons at dwelling. Finally, perhaps it’s tremendous that I selected to not say hello to that one acquaintance whom I really feel obligated to acknowledge each time I move them on the road, understanding full nicely of our mutual want to not say something in any respect. Spending as a lot time desirous about pondering as I do, it’s fascinating how one can nearly begin to see the way in which different folks assume as nicely.

The narrative I’ve crafted in my head requires each new expertise, interplay, and encounter to suit neatly into the overall framework of the world as I’ve skilled it. Yet, as I’m navigating the final 12 months of my teenagehood, I’m beginning to understand that this framework is much less useful than I assumed it was. This realization began with the invention that it’s nearly irritatingly clear once I encounter one thing that certainly does not match into this framework (which, as I’m discovering, appears to occur lots). The conclusion: Is it, then, really acceptable to expertise with out analyzing? The barely embarrassed, post-Pokémon-club-rejection third grader in me says no; the older, hopefully wiser model says indicators level to sure.

Maybe there’s some particular which means behind all the things. Maybe Plato and Sartre are proper that human beings are ceaselessly strolling contradictions of themselves and thus can by no means embody the type of data that’s merely itself with out having an reverse. Contradictions exist within the climate—the dusting of snow falling somberly on prime of buildings, coloring them white and pale, after days of sunshine which introduced out the sunshine in everybody. They exist within the ideas in a single’s head and the expression on one’s face, whether or not or not one enhances the opposite. There appears to be as a lot to be mentioned within the unstated as in what is claimed outright; being a power overthinker places one into a relentless state of pondering between the traces. 

I move buildings with partitions dotted with flowers and surprise if these flowers exist within the crevices of my mind, inhibiting some neural pathway and leading to my overthinking nature. I look on the cathedral-like brick layouts in Sayles and surprise if some monk in a cathedral a whole lot of years in the past felt the identical sense of awe as I do. I ponder if folks act out of the identical pursuit of some type of drawn-out aim, in the event that they’re motivated by a single worth in life, if some reside carried away by feelings, if some don’t. 

Another factor I’ve realized whereas at Brown is, as attention-grabbing and invigorating as residing in a single’s head may be, it’s not probably the most sensible methodology of going about one’s lived actuality. Case in level: Perhaps I shouldn’t have gotten irrationally indignant at my physics professor after receiving a pitifully low examination rating once I had spent a lot of the lectures questioning what had induced our joints to evolve in the way in which that they did. Perhaps it’s higher to assume that individuals imply what they are saying and that almost all don’t have malicious intentions. “Perhaps” appears to be the way in which that I am going about residing my life. Yet “perhaps” doesn’t write a paper for me, submit job functions for me, or discuss to my philosophy professor throughout workplace hours concerning the nature of morality for me. 

“Perhaps” has been each a blessing and a curse. But upon residing expertise after expertise at Brown, one thing that I all the time appear to return to, even within the midst of power overthinking, is that one scene from Kung Fu Panda the place Master Oogway advises a forlorn Po who’s debating quitting his Dragon Warrior coaching: “Quit, don’t quit. Noodles, don’t noodles. You are too concerned with what was and what will be. There is a saying: Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.” Maybe the which means of life will all the time be contingent upon a perhaps. Maybe this fact is totally acceptable—perhaps the lesson is that it’s going to certainly all work out.