#13: On Over-Analyzing
A lot of the times I seem idle and zoned out, and too often I unintentionally spend so much time within the cluster of thoughts and questions in my head to the extent that I must cautiously watch myself so I don’t get too caught up and end up trapping myself in them forever. It doesn’t have to be this way, but it upsets me how it is.
I mean, I can easily just not think too much, right? Because life is so easy that it came equipped with an on-and-off switch?
No, especially not when you have used it as a comforting mechanism, when you’ve learned to float for hours along with the questions in your head that have no answers, at least not yet. It’s difficult to not over-analyze everything when even over-analyzing itself has become the norm, something you must do in order to push through with the cruel joke life is fond of pulling, one that comes in the form of uncertainty.
It’s silly, and you might be thinking, if I’m already uncertain, how does over-thinking and over-analyzing do me any favors? Personally, I don’t know. It has just been a tool I misuse and overuse when sadness is mistaken for happiness by my brain; when feeling down is what lifts me up. Crazy, I know. Maybe I'm just too drained from everything that has occurred this year and prior so far. Maybe maybe I'm just overthinking about overthinking. Maybe I’m too damaged in the head.
Sometimes though, this negative ball of thoughts can be so miraculous, when it somehow manages to turn into a bigger, better ball of awareness. Cynical thoughts are, given, cynical, but often times when the meter of what ultimately defines a human leans more toward the “evil” side, the negativity can be used to prevent future “once bitten, twice shy” moments, especially in instances where you know for sure that there is nothing good to come out of something.
I am definitely not one to glorify negativity, no. I’m just trying to reassure myself that I am not one with a confined experience. In fact, if not once in a blue moon, maybe a chance rate higher than that, Overthinking has done me right: during the times it became a tool for conversing with imaginary versions of people, and experiencing imaginary versions of upcoming situations and possible outcomes in order to prevent undesirable outcomes in reality.
By the end of the day I just want to overthink less and just, maybe, live a little more outside of my head. Live now instead of planning how to live later. If my brain won’t allow, I hope its tendency to overthink at least brings more light, give purpose to the hyper-awareness I often have when it comes to life and its cruel jokes. If it’s going to make me indefinitely float in the vast space of uncertainty in my head, at least allow me to have a eureka moment, discover answers, and figure out what life is — anything that’ll prove my state of deep idle to be worthwhile.