Will my next thought be my best thought?
Exploring the surprise of the next thing to come into your head
What will my next thought be?
Will it be about bananas?
Coffee?
A cat?
Or will my next thought be a crafty runner, streaking across the expanse of my mind and to the safety of the overgrown ditch on the other side?
Will it be fleeting and rude—a thought that knows it should never be said aloud?
If that’s the thought that’s next, will it make it across the expanse or will it be felled by the internal bad-idea sniper watching from my doubt parapet, currently locking in sights and chewing gum?
If that’s the next thought, I mean. If that’s the one.
Or will my next thought be about a song, caught in the amber of my ear and echoing toward the chamber of my heart and this will be me, wondering why that is?
Will it be of chores to be done and errands to be run? Of life’s dull tune that plays and plays and plays, an earworm for the undone.
Will there be a list?
Will my next thought be about time? The lack of it, or the too much stretching at the canvas of the day.
Will it be about the constant pain in my knee and how I should really have that looked at?
Is that my next thought?
I wonder?
Will it be a crushing reminder of the pointlessness of self? Of my self in particular. Of those eyes looking back each morning and having nothing, being nothing, wanting all.
Is that it?
Will it be an image of myself, a stark outline of a form against the world, wailing and flailing, tripping and falling in an effort to make herself known?
Will it be a fleeting glimpse into my own psyche, frightening and filled with fear, a shaking, waking, trembling leaf caught in the pool filter of time, sucking against the drain?
Will it be a ‘right talking to’ for the ages? Of me saying things to myself that I wouldn’t let anyone else say?
Will it be of existential dread?
Or will it be of bills, which is sometimes the same thing?
What will my next thought be?
Will it be a flood of warm thought, a lazy dream of nature and the world and of me marveling at the love of being in it? On it. Part of the kaleidoscope.
A memory perhaps? Perhaps that time when I hit a golf ball so perfectly I felt an instant connection to what you would probably call life but could just be luck in the moment. A force, a conversation, a message from some spirit above through ball to club to body to earth like lightning striking a tall tree as if to say, “I see you, Janeen, I see you.”
A memory of my mother?
Of childhood?
Of a boy named Daniel?
Of a man named [name withheld]?
Will it be that?
Will it be something that doesn’t exist yet? Something that springs from the soil of my brain, an idea in delicate bloom with petals just winking open? An idea born of time and flowering from within my mind and out into the world to do…, what exactly?
What be the thought?
Will this thought have color?
A voice?
Will the shape of it be real, be true, be honest?
Or will it be a scam, a ruse, a sleight of hand?
Ego talking, strutting, making me do what I do not want and do want and do and don’t do?
Will it be a whisper—unnecessary since I’m the only one listening?
A scoffing sound?
A pfft?
No joke, what will my next thought be?
Breakfast? Will it be about breakfast and how much protein is in it and how that’s probably not enough, and where and how can I get more protein?
Am I anemic?
Should I start eating meat again?
What is a Bitcoin?
I wonder… will this next thought be about you? About the glory of what you mean to me and how if that’s so significant why don’t I talk to you more? Reach out more? Call, text, drop a line? Surely that’s the least I can do?
Will it be of family?
Will it be about that record I want, or the book I’m reading, or that person that fascinates me and now I worry I’m perhaps obsessing on, and should figure out why so I can back off on that and search for those qualities that fascinate me in someone who is attainable?
Just a thought.
Or will it be, as it so often is, about nothing and I’ll get caught in the nothing and not realize I’m in it until a bit later when I’ll look around and think, “Where did I go just then?” and be so tickled that I was absent—that my mind has a dead spot—that I grin for no reason.
A secret grin.
Will it be a jealous thought?
A bitter thought?
A flash of anger?
Sad?
I wonder what my next thought will be?1
I don’t know, but I do know that I don’t know, and that’s the surprise. I don’t know what it looks like or if it brings me love or means me harm, nor do I know the direction of its arrival.
Yet, somehow I’m always looking the right way when it comes.
This is my next thought.
That was my last thought.
But not my “last ever” thought.
Think about it.
Yours in tiny thought,
Janeen
Go behind the scenes of this post:
This week’s amends…
“Try a little experiment. Close your eyes and say to yourself: “I wonder what my next thought is going to be.” Then become very alert and wait for the next thought. Be like a cat watching a mouse hole. What thought is going to come out of the mouse hole? Try it now.”― Eckhart Tolle, from “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment”
On Rotation: “Weighted Down” by Alexander ‘Skip’ Spence
Be careful what you say within earshot of artist Avner Geller. She might just illustrate it. Artist Overhears Ridiculous Conversations, Turns Them Into Funny Illustrations
Via Awesome Things
You might think the Titanic only sunk once. But that doesn’t include all the times it has struck that ice and plunged to the bottom in film and on TV. Behold this supercut.
Via Kottke
Shameless Podcast Plug
Listen to audio versions of early issues of The Stream on my podcast, Field of Streams, available on 👉 all major podcasting platforms 👈
Here’s Apple
See Eckhard Tolle's quote in today’s post.