Mental Traps_ The Overthinker's Guide to a Happier Life - Andre Kukla [1]
The idea that we can be unaware of our own thoughts may strike us as paradoxical, for we tend to equate consciousness with thinking itself. But the two are by no means identical processes. We may be exquisitely conscious of the taste of an exotic fruit or the feel of an orgasm without having a thought in our head. And we may be filled to overflowing with an unbroken stream of ideas without noticing a single one. The following mental experiment will convince us of this important point.
When we aren’t occupied with any definite business or pleasure, our thoughts often wander from one topic to another on the basis of the flimsiest associations. This experiment can be conducted only when we happen to catch ourselves in the midst of such wanderings. For those who don’t fall asleep quickly, the time spent lying awake in bed is especially rich in this material. As soon as we catch ourselves wandering, we can begin a backward reconstruction of the sequence of ideas that led us to where we are. If we were thinking about the beauty of Paris, we may recall that this was preceded by a thought about a friend who has just returned from there. The idea of the friend’s return may have come from the recollection that this person owes us money, which may in turn have come from ruminations about our financial difficulties, which may have been elicited by the idea that we would like to buy a new car.
In this experiment, it’s essential not to decide ahead of time that we will reconstruct the next few minutes of thought. We have to wait until we catch ourselves in midstream. When this happens, we’re invariably surprised at the twists and turns taken by the stream of our ideas. Without an active reconstruction, we would never have suspected that the thought of Paris had its origin in the desire for a new car! And it’s this experience of surprise that proves the point. We wouldn’t be surprised unless we didn’t know what we had been thinking. Our thinking was unconscious. Evidently, the process of thinking no more depends on our continuous attention to it than walking depends on our continuously keeping track of the position of our arms and legs.
Mental traps often remain below the level of awareness in just this way. We fall into them automatically, without making a conscious decision. The first requirement for getting rid of them is to learn the art of detection. This book provides the materials necessary to meet that requirement. It’s a naturalist’s guide to a certain order of mental flora, outlining the conspicuous characteristics of its various members, replete with illustrative examples. It’s a handbook for the identification of mental traps.
Learning to detect and identify the traps is the first step. But detection and identification aren’t enough to put an end to them. We also need to be convinced that they’re useless and injurious. This isn’t always obvious. In fact, mental traps are often mistaken for absolutely essential activities without which life would become chaotic and dangerous. Some traps are even celebrated in famous proverbs. We will not move against them until we’re thoroughly convinced that they have no redeeming value.
Every good naturalist’s guide contains this sort of practical information. What’s the use of learning to identify the amanita mushroom if we’re not also told that it’s poisonous? In this handbook too, the various aids to the identification of mental traps are supplemented by analyses of their harmful effects.
Having learned to identify the traps and having been convinced that it’s to our advantage to be rid of them, we are left with an ordinary case of a bad habit. At this stage, we’re like a smoker who has accepted the findings of the surgeon general’s report. As every smoker knows, it’s only now