One Step Further

I've been told that I always take things one step beyond normal. I over-think. I over-analyze. I've been told that my train of thought veers way off the tracks and that people have a hard time keeping up. That might all be true. I certainly hope so.

See, I don't want to be normal. I don't want to have an irrational thought and grasp onto it thinking that it resembles Truth. I want to seek the patterns and currents of thought. I want to know the Why behind everything. Why do we do what we do? Why do we like certain foods and not others? Why do we date certain people? Why do we continue bad behaviors even though we know better? Why do people keep electing Republicans? You know... irrational stuff like that.

Earlier today I heard the author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series on a radio show. It was a good interview. Except for one thing he said. Now, I may misquote him here, but: "There is a blessing in every tragedy".

I take issue with a statement like that. Anybody who wants to take 8-12 seconds of thought can disprove that statement. We can instantly think of tragic events that have not ended up as blessings. The Holocaust. The massacre of millions in Russia and China during the Communist Revolutions. Jonestown. Any music produced by Phillip Glass. You know... really really horrible things.

But see what we just did? We applied a few seconds of thought to something we were told. I know that perhaps hundreds of thousands of people heard that statement today and simply took it at face value. Some people may have even written it down to share with others. They didn't actually think about it.

It's that extra step that I think is important. I think if more people kept thinking about things, we'd be a lot less likely to spew crap like that. We'd just think to ourselves that it's not true and we'd let it slide. I think we'd be better off only passing on to others things that we've actually applied some effort into thinking about ourselves. It's called Food for Thought for a reason. You're supposed to think about it.