Where Do Thoughts Come From?

Where do thoughts come from? It's a question I constantly ask myself.

Sometimes when I listen to an audiobook or read an actual book, I get this feeling that what I'm hearing is entirely internal.

It's like there's nobody else involved. It's just me talking to me.

It appears that the information I'm lining up with is like a conglomerate of everything that, linearly speaking, came before.

But rather than something linear, I like to think of the information like an ever expanding sphere, upon which I seem to be located on the edge.

Everyone is on the edge, and on the edge of the edge are the ones like you and me who are busy making stuff.

Sure, there's the printed words that someone originally put together or the sounds on the MP3 track recorded in a studio, but the internalisation and conversion of all that data into something meaningful goes on within me.

Is it a realisation or a fabrication in my own mind?

Initially I can not say, but as I analyse the experience in my own mind the reality of what it is hits home.

There's no need for outside endorsement or validation, the truth of what's going on is completely apparent to me.

Do All Ideas Exist Already?

When I read, listen or indeed write, what I experience is so complex that it seems difficult for me to put it into words.

But I'll give it a go.

When I read I'm looking at a page and I see the print on the page.

What is the print?

The printed page is a series of symbols that have evolved over time and have come to represent human experience, emotions and things in the world.

The symbols are downstream of noises that we make with our throats and mouths, and the noises we make are downstream of the thoughts we think.

When I read the words on the page it generates an inner conversation and my imagination paints a picture for me.

The picture is representative of the words I'm reading, which at their time of writing, were representative of the thoughts another was thinking.

The original thought, although there's no such thing as original thought, and the subsequent thought are never identical.

They grow and develop into something else, different from before but similar nonetheless. It's like a fractal psychic creative process where one's idea is the mother of the next.

Sometimes I think every thought already exists, waiting for us to open our awareness up to them. When I read it's like there's just me in observation of the thought.

Of course I'm physical, so it appears I need a medium to engage with all of this.

That comes in the form of books and audio and anything else that stimulates my sensory equipment.

Regardless of the apparent source, to me it seems that there is only one voice that comes in many forms and speaks to everyone.

When we are in the creative mode we are open, we can hear it.

A Finger Pointing At The Moon

We generally agree on what these noises and symbols represent.

For example you know that the word jam means the sugary stuff made from fruit that comes in a jar, you can spread it on your bread and it tastes really good.

But that's a bit long winded so jam will do.

Sometimes it's not always that simple though. Sometimes we debate, argue and even go to war over words and the ideas behind them.

We don't appear to understand what these words are. We come to believe in them and are often prepared to sacrifice everything for them.

It's ridiculous to consider mistaking the word jam for the sweet sugary stuff in the jar made from fruit but every day we do it.

Alan Watts introduced me to the Buddhist metaphor of A Finger Pointing At The Moon.

In relation to religion, the bible and other religious texts, Watts says the following;

Too many of us, I fear, watch the pointing finger of religion for comfort, instead of looking where it points.

We get far too excited and offended by words.

We're prepared to ostracise, cast out and even kill other people for the sake preservation of words.

Books like the Koran and the Bible written over hundreds of years, edited and translated by many different sources are taken literally.

Other books are considered sacrilegious.

We put all these rules in place to make sure nobody says something that could offend other people. Say something out of line and entire societies can turn on you.

It's insane really.

We're Either Open Or Closed To Ideas

What are you creating?

Maybe you are a writer, an artist, a musician or maybe you're building a business.

It doesn't matter much. If you are open to the positive creative information that exists already then you will make something great.

If you're predominantly closed and fearful then it's likely what you make will be a ball of shite.

That's been my experience anyway.

Some say you can't have a positive experience from a negative journey and I'm inclined to agree with that.

There's just no way we can create something others can enjoy if we don't feel good along the way and allow the inspiration to flow.

Most of our society is closed minded though. It believes in the rules and the structures we've built over the truth behind it all.

That's why things are generally so slow to change.