B.Y.O.T.

by Syl Schulze

Busy Mind Bindery is a blog dedicated to providing instructional tutorials on book-binding while inviting readers to think about themselves and the world around them.
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“‘Really, now you ask me,’ said Alice, very much confused, ‘I don’t think-‘
‘Then you shouldn’t talk,’ said the Hatter.” – Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

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Do I deserve any sympathy for thinking so hard I don’t want to think anymore?

I’ll get back to that in a moment. I think I’ve built up a good precedent for a book-tutorial every other week, so in keeping with that, today’s post will be just thoughts again. Thoughts aren’t unrelated to books. Books are full of thought, whether the thought goes into their construction or their contents. It is the creator’s discretion whether the book they are making is thoughtful, thought-full, or perhaps thoughtless.

Yes, today’s post will be thoughtless. It’s BYOT tonight- Bring Your Own Thoughts. In order to make sure I have less thoughts and you have more, here is one of the Oxford English Dictionary definitions for thought, n.: “The action or process of thinking; mental action or activity in general, esp. that of the intellect; exercise of the mental faculty; formation and arrangement of ideas in the mind”.

A thought is an action. I am under the impression, that in order to complete an action one must exert energy. Therefore, thinking uses up energy and is a factor when considering how a person spends their energy. If I spend the entire day thinking but do not perform any physical activity, will my body feel as tired as if I had ran a mile?

The times my brain feels the most stretched to its limits, so unbelievably crammed with new information it might burst inside my skull, I wonder if it is because I am thinking too much or because I am not thinking at all. Am I thinking so many thoughts that their collective energy renders me unable to comprehend any of them, convincing myself I am thinking of nothing?

I admit, I know little of the physical and chemical workings of the brain. I do not know if my thoughts gather like dust bunnies under the bed, or the dirty dishes piling in the kitchen sink. Both seem like slow processes. I feel like sometimes they hit me all at once, like baseballs being thrown at a hitter but the hitter has no bat and they are standing directly on home base, letting each leathery stone hit their flesh, bruising them.

If that is the case, how can you blame me for not wanting to think anymore? After such an onslaught of heavy thoughts, does it not make sense for the thinker to retreat and recover? Resign from the big league forever?

I am writing about thinking rather outside of the realm reality. For as much as I do not want to think, how dreadful would it be if I got my wish? To truly be without any kind of thought forever and ever- an empty head. I would not know what to do with myself. And I likely wouldn’t even ask what to do with myself. I would much rather let myself be hit with baseballs over and over for eternity, I don’t know about you.

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“‘I’ve a right to think,’ said Alice sharply, for she was beginning to feel a little worried.” 

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