Who we are and who we become are dependent upon the thoughts we persistently think. Since they are so important and influential in the development – or stunting – of our lives it begs the question, “Where do our thoughts come from?

The fact that human beings are able to think raises some additional intriguing questions. To what degree is thinking under the control of the thinker? Is the act of thinking under the sole discretion of the one doing the thinking? Are thoughts the unique expression of the pure volition of the individual mind or are there other factors at play, as well?

Every adult human being experiences life within two distinct realms that together comprise and define personal reality. Within the context of this article, the answers to the questions posed above will emerge from our discussion of these two realms of reality.

The Two Realms of Reality

The first realm is the body. It contains the brain and its ability to think both reflexively and reflectively. Life itself for every living being exists only in terms of a unique physical presence. From this perspective, there can be no disembodied manifestation of life. In this realm, we experience life in personal and subjective terms. Our bodies limit but at the same time focus our experiences of life. We are literally at the center of the universe – our universe – because our physical presence necessarily places us in the middle of everything around us, no matter where we are. This has a significant impact on how we think of ourselves and about the world around us.

Human life exists within multiple social contexts. This is the second realm within which we all live, move and have our being. What we think about ourselves is shaped to some degree by what we think others think of us. Each of us is equipped with a subconscious “radar” that constantly sends out signals, both visible and invisible, that “bounce off” whatever is around us, especially other people. We then sift through the signals that come back to us looking for how others are reacting to us and, consequently, how we should behave.

Specifically, we’re looking for positive signs that reassure us that we are being taken seriously and appreciated and respected by those around us. But we’re also acutely attuned to the negative “vibes” we sometime detect others giving off in our direction. We take most of our cues about how to act and how to view ourselves from the various social landscapes we find ourselves in throughout our lives.

The Public and Private Conditions of Thought

When I’m in public I comport myself in a way that I think others would approve of and perhaps even admire. The social environment that surrounds me at any particular moment is the primary brush with which my mental landscape is painted. It is within this landscape that my thoughts arise and my decisions about how to direct and act upon those thoughts are made.

Since behavior stems from thinking, everything I do when I’m in public is directed in large measure by the social environment in which I find myself, filling as it does my physical and psychological senses with its distinct stimuli. The image I have of myself is largely a social construction whose reality emerges from how I perceive the specific external environments I find myself in and their requirements of me to act in certain acceptable ways.

When I’m alone I find my thoughts arising from a place within me that, when I’m in public, remains dormant and inaccessible. I experience an interior environment that is private and, if I so choose, unfiltered by social constraints. Even though it has been shaped by years of social conditioning from repeated experiences and repetitive “traditioning” (lessons taught by many people as to the validity and verity of certain ways of thinking and acting), I feel this inner environment should be a place where I’m free to create my own personal reality, even one that contradicts and challenges any existing social mores and status quo morality.

However, just as my thoughts stem from the social environment around me when I’m in public, so, too, the thoughts that arise from a place deep within me are not always under my control. They seem to come out of nowhere and thrust themselves upon me disregarding my current emotional state of being. I find myself frequently at the mercy of a confluence of influences biological and psychological that overwhelm my private thinking with unwelcome notions and desires.

The freedom of thought I think I should have in my own mind is not unfettered. In fact, it is very much determined by the existential realities of human nature and society. These realities create the mental and emotional universe within which all of my thoughts are born, nurtured and manifested.

Put another way, my mind is contained within a limited realm of possible thoughts. I cannot think beyond the limits of my human nature and its social contexts. These are the boundaries within which I am able to think and beyond which thought is unknown and unknowable. Every thought that appears to be “out of this world,” one that soars above the surly bonds of earth or that appears to visit the mind “from above” nevertheless feels the weight of a humanity bound by its earthliness. It arises from its mental womb and perpetually bears the marks of its birth.

Thought and Action

Thinking, both reflexive and reflective, is what the brain does. It reflexively maintains and protects the body without which it could not survive. This involuntary brain activity is a form of thinking, albeit at the subconscious level. All forms of thinking, even conscious reflective thought, is really nothing more than electrical and chemical energy combined and arranged in certain ways. These thoughts signify nothing in and of themselves. In Lewis Carroll’s “Alice Through the Looking Glass,” Humpty Dumpty proclaims, “when I use a word, it means exactly what I say it means – nothing more, nothing less. The same is true of thoughts: they mean only what the thinker thinks they mean – nothing more, nothing less.

Furthermore, thought does not automatically translate into action. To activate the potential life-changing power of your thoughts, you need to do more than think. You need to choose to do something with what you think. You need to put your body in motion in a way that facilitates the realization of your thoughts. Putting your thoughts into words and expressing them verbally is an act of intentionality. Choosing to write is another action that translates thought into tangible expressions. Setting about doing something that results in a changed physical environment is a further act of one’s will to manifest invisible thoughts in the external world.

The Motivation to Act on Your Thoughts

What motivates the thinker to take action on the thought and to translate it into reality? The motives to take action do not lie within the thoughts themselves. Thoughts are merely mental activity. They are simply bits of subjective data.

To help us answer this question, we need to understand the process the brain goes through to determine whether or not to act on a conscious thought. In the path from thought through action into reality the brain objectifies itself by becoming an observer as well as the originator of this process. This objectification provides an inner sense of Self that dispassionately and silently surveys one’s thinking and witnesses the resulting thoughts as something distinct from the thinking Self.

This innate and instantaneous objectification process allows us to choose to do something – or nothing – with the thoughts that enter our minds from any source and by any cause. This is the pinnacle of reflective thought. The brain produces thoughts as a result of physical stimuli but the mind determines how the brain should interpret and treat those thoughts. Should they be acted on? Should they continue to be thought? Should they be regarded as unimportant and discarded?

The thinking Self observes the thinking process, assesses the significance and potential of the resulting thoughts and chooses what to do. Choice is the source of motivation to act on one’s thoughts. Choice is the act of taking responsibility for the material outcomes of the thoughts we think. Were we to be predestined to think the thoughts we have and act in the ways we do, we would have no motivation to see opportunity and potential in our thinking or any incentive for assuming responsibility for turning our thoughts into reality.

The Thought-Shaping Brain and Brain-Shaping Thought

Recent scientific investigations into the relationship between the mind and the brain have revealed that mere thought can, and does, shape brain matter. There is now scientific proof of William James’ comment that the mind, once stretched by a new idea, can never return to its original dimensions.

Many in the field of neuroscience today believe that thought can only result from physical activities in the brain; that is, chemical and electrical impulses caused by physical stimuli both inside and outside the body. But many have begun to study the challenge posed by the Dalai Lama when he recently asked brain surgeons if the mind could shape brain matter and if thought alone could change the brain’s activity, its circuits and connections and even its structure.

In the January 19, 2007 edition of the Wall Street Journal, Sharon Begley summarized her book, “Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain.” She writes, “In the last decade of the 20th century, neuroscientists overthrew the dogma that the adult brain can’t change. To the contrary, its structure and activity can morph in response to experience, an ability called neuroplasticity.”

“Attention . . . seems like one of those ephemeral things that comes and goes in the mind but has no real physical presence. Yet attention can alter the layout of the brain as powerfully as a sculptor’s knife can alter a slab of stone.”

An intense study of monkeys that were trained to pay attention to either sound or touch demonstrated that, as the researcher Michael Merzenich commented, “through attention we choose and sculpt how our ever-changing minds will work. We choose who we will be the next moment in a very real sense, and these choices are left embossed in physical form on our material selves.”

On-going study of the meditation practices of Tibetan Buddhist monks has demonstrated that they are able to produce and sustain certain powerful brain waves that essentially meld several aspects and functions of various parts of the brain into a higher state of consciousness. This elevated state endured even though the monks were not actually meditating. “In each case, monks with the most hours of meditation showed the most dramatic brain changes. That was the strong hint that mental training makes it easier for the brain to turn on circuits that underlie compassion and empathy.”

Choosing to think in certain ways and to act on those thoughts by moving your body to alter your environment in specific ways constitutes the freedom of thought and will that is integral to the development and sustenance of a healthy and growing personality. And this is the basis for any caring community and culture of compassion.

The Benefits and Burdens of Habit

We make our habits by the thoughts we persistently think and the choices we consistently make regarding whether or not to act on them. Then our habits of doing and not doing make – or break – us. Habits essentially take the thinking out of acting.

This is both a good and a bad thing. It’s good in that you don’t have to think about how to tie your shoe every time you do it. There are many daily activities we engage in that we’ve committed to memory. We do them without having to think about how to do them. This shortcut saves not only time but reduces aggravation, confusion and doubt as to whether you’re doing the right thing in the right way. Habit is what you do when you’re not thinking about what you’re doing. It makes life more efficient and less cluttered with unnecessary thoughts and activities. The results of a habit are good if what you “do by heart” is supportive of personal growth and compassionate behavior toward others.

But habit can be bad not just in the sense of having a bad habit, the results of which are not supportive of personal growth and compassionate behavior toward others. Any kind of habit constricts the brain’s physical dimensions and hinders its continued growth to accommodate and create new ways of thinking and idea formation. Begley cites research that demonstrates that when new thoughts and activities become second nature and performed without need of attentiveness, they lose their ability to stimulate brain structure growth and development.

Therefore, always choose to do something different, something unusual for you. Be aggressive in growing your brain and its ability to think increasingly better thoughts that will result in increasingly better choices. Make it a habit to constantly challenge your habits – good and bad!

What You Think Means More Than You Think

Soren Kierkegaard, a Danish Theologian of the nineteenth century, wrote that the reader has the ability to understand the author better than the author can understand him or herself. There is always a personal physical, mental and emotional context as well as a broader social and cultural context within which we live, move and have our being. These contexts are composed of numerous facts and factors many of which we are totally unaware of. We are always influenced and often driven by these dynamics unbeknownst to us. It’s usually only when some time passes that we are able to catch sight of the truth behind our past behavior and thoughts.

We’ve all been able to trace hitherto unknown patterns in our behavior when recalling our experiences after the passage of time. Sometimes we can get the big picture almost immediately. Other times, it takes much longer, perhaps years or decades, to discover the true meaning of our actions.

It’s true that “hindsight is 20/20” and this is similar to what Kierkegaard was saying. But he was saying something more, as well. People who live at a time removed from those whom they read are able to see more clearly the contexts within which the authors lived and are better able to discern those social and personal influences that were at play moving them to write, act and think as they did. They can perceive a broader scope, deeper dimensions and a fuller range of significance of what the author wrote. They can see beyond the words and distinguish unintended but nevertheless legitimate meanings of their messages.

This is true for other people in our lives who necessarily see us differently than we see ourselves. They are removed from our inner life and can observe us from a vantage point that we can never occupy ourselves. In other words, they can know us better in some ways than we can know ourselves. They can observe our actions divorced from our intent and judge what we actually do without the taint of what we intended to do. It’s true that we judge others by their actions but judge ourselves by our intentions. The Scottish poet Robert Burns put it succinctly: “Oh wad some power the giftie gie us, to see ourselves as others see us!” (“To a Louse,” 1786).

Knowing Yourself Involves More Than Yourself

We cannot be aware of all external and internal factors that motivate us to act. However, as mentioned above, we can gain a broader Self-understanding with the passage of time and with the help of others who can provide us with the view of ourselves as others see us. Only then can we obtain a fuller perspective of who we are. We cannot know ourselves by ourselves.

Francis Quarles, who lived in the early Seventeenth century, wrote, “Read not books alone, but men, and amongst them chiefly thyself. If thou find anything questionable there, use the commentary of a severe friend rather than the gloss of a sweet lipped flatterer; there is more profit in a distasteful truth than in deceitful sweetness.” We need others to help us become more fully aware of who we truly are and what we can do.

Summary

Where do your thoughts come from? They come from places that are difficult to identify precisely. They can be generated from outside stimuli or from inner biological and physiological processes. They can also stem from the brain’s own structure and the thinker’s own will. Wherever and whenever they arise, thoughts are the raw material for choice on the part of the thinker. The choice determines the action and the action determines the outcome.

You are not bound by or to your thoughts or your way of thinking. In fact, your choice is the critical element in how and what you will think in the future and what choices will be available to you. Choose as you will and it is inevitable that you will become the person you really want to be, living the life you really want to live.

Ken Wallace
http://betterthanyourbest.com/