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The Value of Thinking Our Own Thoughts

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MariaHobbit
Post subject: The Value of Thinking Our Own Thoughts
Posted: Thu 14 Jun , 2007 6:36 pm
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As we were driving yesterday, my husband flipped on the radio and Bill O'Reilly came on. We often listen to him during our lunch drive, but I was in the middle of thinking about *something* that was relevant to us personally, and the radio conversation drove my incipent Important Relevation right out of my head.

And so I flipped the radio off with an "ARRRGGGGHHH!" and tried to remember what it was I was about to have a EUREKA moment about, but the idea had passed and I was left pondering the essential weirdness in letting your mind follow someone else's thought processes without having any of your own.

You might gain an insight into the cure for a national problem that way, but you also prevent yourself from thinking through a personal problem when you do that. And really, what's more important to me? A national problem that LOTS of other people are thinking about and probably wouldn't listen to me if I had a better idea anyway--- or pondering personal problems that no one BUT me really thinks about anyway?

Which is more valuable to me? Yet more prognosticating on illegal immigration? Or possibly a better way to deal with my daughter's case of mono? Or some important point I'd forgotten to talk to my husband about, regarding our house renovation project? Or our hay harvest?

What was it that was driven out of my head?

And how often does that happen? How many times have I been about to realize something kewl and some talking head drags my awareness along their path instead of the one I needed more?

I don't think I need "news" anymore. I have enough to think about on my own.

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Crucifer
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Posted: Thu 14 Jun , 2007 6:50 pm
A song outlasts a dynasty.
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Happened to me several times during my Junior Cert (state exams) 2 years ago. Can't afford to be thinking anout other stuff during a maths exam, so off they went. No idea now what they were.
Isn't it annoying?

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Axordil
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Posted: Thu 14 Jun , 2007 6:51 pm
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I wonder how much of it is conditioning. I literally can't HEAR my son and the radio at the same time if it's talk.

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MariaHobbit
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Posted: Thu 14 Jun , 2007 6:56 pm
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Oh, my brain is wired funny that way anyway. If music is playing, I can't hear what other people are saying unless they are right up close and talking loud. It doesn't even have to be loud, it's like my brain preferentially locks in on the electronic sound over the organic. :scratch:

But that's a different phenomenon, I think. I'm talking about outside input distracting one from interior dialogue. Following someone else's train of thought instead of having your own.

That seems bad to me, if done too often. You would get out of the habit of thinking for yourself, maybe....

edit: or give preference to solving world problems instead of your own.

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Axordil
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Posted: Thu 14 Jun , 2007 7:12 pm
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Hmm. But if your husband just started talking, would you have been as distracted?

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MariaHobbit
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Posted: Thu 14 Jun , 2007 7:23 pm
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No, because he would have said whatever it was I was about to say! :D

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Axordil
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Posted: Thu 14 Jun , 2007 7:31 pm
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Brainjacking is a terrible waste of a mind. Wait, didn't Dan Quayle say that?

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Meril36
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Posted: Thu 14 Jun , 2007 9:59 pm
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MariaHobbit wrote:
Oh, my brain is wired funny that way anyway. If music is playing, I can't hear what other people are saying unless they are right up close and talking loud.
Is it just with music that you like, or with any music that's playing? See, to me, listening to good music is like having an orgasm in my brain, so if there's a distraction it's like having cerebral coitus interruptus.

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Axordil
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Posted: Thu 14 Jun , 2007 10:01 pm
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And really, REALLY good music--or at least really effective--gets STUCK in your brain. :help:

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MariaHobbit
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Posted: Fri 15 Jun , 2007 2:11 pm
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Meril36 wrote:
MariaHobbit wrote:
Oh, my brain is wired funny that way anyway. If music is playing, I can't hear what other people are saying unless they are right up close and talking loud.
Is it just with music that you like, or with any music that's playing? See, to me, listening to good music is like having an orgasm in my brain, so if there's a distraction it's like having cerebral coitus interruptus.
It's any sort of music with singing in it. Or at least, singing in a language I understand. Instrumentals I can relegate to background noise. Songs in languages I don't understand, I can ignore (edit- or appreciate just for their beauty) - languages I know a little of grab my attention for a single word or phrase. Songs in English hijack my train of thought in much the same way I was describing in the first post.

My thoughts get dragged down the singer's thought pathway without any regard for what I wanted to be thinking at that moment. I can be reduced to tears in just a few lines of a country western song, that the rest of my family don't even notice because for them it's just background music. Except for my son. He can't tune out singing, either. But he doesn't let it get to him like I do.

I don't listen to music much for that reason- because I CANT stop listening to it. I guess it is the same thing as the talk radio phenomenon, only more powerful because of the musical element.

It was literally painful for me to attend choir performances when my daughter was still doing that. Their voices were so beautiful, and the words sank right into my heart and twisted. I had to put up shields just to keep from sobbing out loud. The struggle to maintain emotional control was so difficult that I was quite relieved when she announced she was done with choir and wouldn't be doing it the next year.

So, I guess all these things are related, and of different magnitudes of power with massed, live singing being the most devastating, then recorded singing and then with radio talk shows being close behind. Of course, a similarly unstoppable live speaker is just as distracting.

Maybe that's why I like messageboards so much. I can take in info at my own rate- stop and ponder my own thoughts for a bit, make a reply and not miss anything! You don't HAVE to follow someone else's train of thought until they stop speaking, you can pause at anytime and pursue your own sidetrack to your heart's content. And then go back to the main thread of conversation. :)

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Meril36
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Posted: Fri 15 Jun , 2007 2:37 pm
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Axordil wrote:
And really, REALLY good music--or at least really effective--gets STUCK in your brain. :help:
When that happens, there are two solutions: actually listen to the piece in question, or find some other piece to take its place.

One time I had "La Vida Loca" stuck in my head, which was even more annoying than usual because I don't even know the whole thing. Luckily CG had a copy of it and I was able to get it out. And when I was doing a 20K march with my company in Basic Training, I had Stravinsky's Rite of Spring stuck in my head. It matched the rhythm of the march.

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Trying for profundity only limits depth.

With all the anger in the land, how long before the judgement day? Before we cut the fat ones down to size? Before the barricades arise?

Visit my art gallery at deviantART.


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Crucifer
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Posted: Sat 16 Jun , 2007 5:45 pm
A song outlasts a dynasty.
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I have the Geographical fugue by Ernst Koch for speaking chorus in my head. I keep bursting into "The popacatapecl is not in Canada, rather in Mexico Mexico Mexico"

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