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Not Listening
Apr. 2nd, 2005 07:43 pmDeciding not to think about something is much easier than the actual not-thinking. That, in fact, is fairly difficult. Especially when the thing you're trying not to think about is a fairly important decision with serious long-term impact on your life and your lifestyle, and the choice itself has no clear right or wrong side.
Thinking about the decision doesn't help, though. No matter how many times I hash it over, the answer doesn't become any more obvious, and no one side looks better. Instead, each side winds up looking worse over time, until neither decision seems like a good one and my insides twist up into a ball of worry and I imagine more and more problems no matter which way I choose.
So not thinking about it seems like an obvious solution, since thinking just makes it worse. Except not thinking leads to thinking about not thinking about it, in a hideous self-referential spiral. I can adhere to my decision not to decide at this moment, but picking at the edges of the problem is painfully tempting. I've spent the day flitting from project to project in a desperate attempt to stay distracted, and it works for a little while. I've started planning for a summer trip, put together an order for baking supplies, watched a mini marathon of Battlestar Galactica, and worked on some painfully difficult eye-straining embroidery, all of which has managed to keep my mind off of problems for at least a few minutes at a time. And now I'm getting ready to go to a movie, which should hopefully occupy my thoughts for the rest of the evening.
Maybe I'll solve the situation in my dreams tonight. Or maybe I'll just dream about packing up crates of lip gloss and bath salts in a giant dormitory while anthropomorphic white tigers wrestle in the next room (I still have no idea what that meant), and go through this all again tomorrow....
Thinking about the decision doesn't help, though. No matter how many times I hash it over, the answer doesn't become any more obvious, and no one side looks better. Instead, each side winds up looking worse over time, until neither decision seems like a good one and my insides twist up into a ball of worry and I imagine more and more problems no matter which way I choose.
So not thinking about it seems like an obvious solution, since thinking just makes it worse. Except not thinking leads to thinking about not thinking about it, in a hideous self-referential spiral. I can adhere to my decision not to decide at this moment, but picking at the edges of the problem is painfully tempting. I've spent the day flitting from project to project in a desperate attempt to stay distracted, and it works for a little while. I've started planning for a summer trip, put together an order for baking supplies, watched a mini marathon of Battlestar Galactica, and worked on some painfully difficult eye-straining embroidery, all of which has managed to keep my mind off of problems for at least a few minutes at a time. And now I'm getting ready to go to a movie, which should hopefully occupy my thoughts for the rest of the evening.
Maybe I'll solve the situation in my dreams tonight. Or maybe I'll just dream about packing up crates of lip gloss and bath salts in a giant dormitory while anthropomorphic white tigers wrestle in the next room (I still have no idea what that meant), and go through this all again tomorrow....
