Thoughts can make us completely mad. Religious doctrines, political views, racism, bigotry, complacency, superstition, rationalizations, excuses, denial, us-and-them-ism, shame, narcissism, too low or too high self-esteem, fascism, liberalism, neo-liberalism, conservatism, neo-conservatism, communism—everything we live for is made of thoughts.
All major religions and political ideologies have led to disasters: gruesome wars, climate change, environmental pollution, the holocaust, slavery, witch hunts, the cultural revolution in China, the killing fields in Cambodia...
So, what are thoughts made of? Electricity and the release of transmitter substances?
Are there optimistic and pessimistic neural pathways? Are there spiritual and evil neurochemicals?
Where do ordinary and healthy people get their stupid ideas from? Do they emerge from the brain stuff, or do they enter the brain from outside? Is the brain both a receiver and a transmitter of idiotic talk shows?
Where do new ideas come from? From out of nowhere?
And where do the genuinely friendly thoughts come from?
You can't stop the thoughts and ideas in your brain, but you can see them for what they are: thoughts. They are not necessarily the truth. You can question or ignore your stupid thoughts and convictions—if you want to. But it is hard, and it takes time. (It took the German nazis 20 years after the war to begin questioning their nazism. It took 1800 years for the Christian churches to realize that slavery was not a decent system.)
Does this idea of calling out one's own thinking change anything? Can it improve our dire situation? I don't think so. An individual can jump off the train if he has the means to sustain himself in that nowhere land, but there is no hope for a fundamental change on the group level. It is too late for us. Our ecological habitat will sooner than later be ruined in a nuclear war or because of climate change. We are heading for a catastrophic train wreck.
