My drop in the ocean

The human thought process - many a times, I've seen this referred to as a chain, a chain of thoughts. However, personally I've always felt thoughts came from several directions and branched out into yet other directions. More of a jumbled bunch of spaghetti than a clean chain.

When you think aloud, though, you tend to focus on a single strand, hence the chain. What's interesting is how many coherent chains one can form from the complex kaleidoscope of thoughts. The more, the better thinker a person is.

Try this simple exercise - it's a tad difficult to 'try' actually, it just happens. When you're relaxed (the best time is at night, before you fall asleep), just let your thoughts wander. Then try to back-track your thought process. Here's one example: I thought of getting my bike serviced, then a bike accident I heard about from my mom, then I remembered my girlfriend's brother is getting a new bike, then an image of her brother while he was in school, then a recollection of my school days; particularly the prayer sessions we used to have, then how I had played the school and national anthem on the keyboard during a prayer session, back to how I'm itching to play some tunes right now, then to this neat song I heard on TV today, then to why the Jodhaa-Akbar soundtrack hasn't been released yet, then to how one of my best friends is waiting anxiously for that movie to get released, then to how I hate Hrithik's overacting, cut to a scene from Lakshya where he's trying to act like an irresponsible brat.......

Well, all these happened in a flash, the fun was in backtracking them. At many points, I simply can't remember what led me to think of a particular thing - but then you also have to take into account that in between this chain, sometimes a truly random thought comes in and apparently spoils the game :)

Labels: chain, game, mind, process, spaghetti, think, thinking, thought