Who You Think You Are – You Think? Oh, You Are. Are You? Am I?

I’m starting to assemble some Grand Thoughts on the subject of Thought itself. What actually is a thought? Can you separate one thought from another? Or is that like trying to separate droplets in a river? I’ve been reading Chomsky on Anarchism and whilst I didn’t disagree with anything he said, I couldn’t help thinking ‘yes, but. There’s human nature to consider. How do you change the heart?’ and then I came across this: ‘You do not think yourself into a different way of living. You live yourself into a different way of thinking.’ (Richard Rohr.)

Yet it can’t be that simple, can it? Because everything starts with a thought – even split-second decisions involve some kind of thought, albeit a non-reflective kind. Don’t they? Or are they pure reflexes? I guess some things are, like jumping out of the way of a speeding car, and yet even these survival instincts can be changed if you really dig deep. Not that there would be much point in not getting out of the way of a speeding car, but then again, suppose you wanted to lie down in front of a tank in order to save your house from being demolished or (much harder) to stop violence against others? I’d find this an incredibly hard thing to do because every cell in my body would be telling me to get up and run: I’d be overriding my most basic survival instincts.

I have a confession to make: I’m an utter wimp when it comes to demonstrating. I talk the talk but I do not lie down in front of the bulldozer. I sit around (not on) the fence but when the police come I get up and move pronto before they can even think about arresting me. Is this cowardice or is it that I’ve been brought up to do as I’m told and obey the law and I’m overriding that conditioning? Either way it’s not something I’m very happy with.

I guess it’s true about ‘living yourself into a different way of thinking.’ But how to start? Well, laughter seems as good a place as any. God knows we could all use a laugh in these dark times (as Fred and George commented when they set up their joke shop in Diagon Alley). So here’s today’s joke, which is to do with OH having a lovely new pair of DM’s and not ‘getting around to’ wearing them. They languished for months and it drove me crazy. ‘You’ll be dead before you wear those,’ I said, ‘and we’ll bury you in them. And you know what your gravestone will say?’

‘No, what?’

‘CARPE DM!’

You can laugh now…

Kirk out

PS incidentally if you have trouble laughing due to depression or sadness, try saying ‘ha ha ha hee hee hee ho ho ho’ out loud. You’ll be laughing in no time.

Oh, and here’s a delightful picture of The Maze, who is so close to laughing it’s unreal.