Is thinking too much about the meaning/significance behind everything, every motive in life, a cause of unhappiness?”
I hear this a lot: “you think too much.” I think people tend to believe that if you think too much, you’ll destroy the pleasure in things. Maybe people don’t trust things to be real if examined to closely. Or maybe they think that if you analyze something, you’ll destroy the emotions involved. I’ve never found that thinking destroys emotions for me. Instead, I find that thinking tends to illuminate my feelings to some degree. Mostly, I observe, and try to observe as carefully and in as much detail as possible. I observe my feelings, and try to construct a narrative that seems to explain the feelings. However, sometimes I think this is dangerous, because there are feelings that may not be related to any events of an external nature. Instead they may be random emotions I feel that arise out of misfiring neurons, or some malady of my mind. So I have learned that it can be dangerous to become too attached to the idea of constructing a meaningful narrative out of the events of my life. And
