Things That Don't Need To Be Thought About

It took long enough, but I'm finally starting to learn a skill that many people across the world are innately born with.  People all across the world are perfectly okay becoming the cogs in our great worldwide economic machine.  That fact is something that needs to be true, and it's rather fantastic that it is.  We owe everything to the people who grow our food, make our clothes, build our infrastructure, and manufacture all kinds of goods.  And all of these people probably had big dreams to become something else, something super-special.  But they all put aside their lofty dreams of becoming rock stars and world leaders to sacrifice their time, so that we can all benefit.

These aren't the die-hard artists, the starry-eyed seers of the future.  These are just normal people who live in the moment and take the world for what it is.  They aren't the strongest creative minds the world has to offer.  They aren't the ones who study the world at length and formulate theories and pedagogy for other theoretical minds to consume in a college classroom.  They're just people, making the world happen.  They aren't the brightest, but in one way, they're more capable than my inventive and tragically active mind...

As some pretentious intellectuals will scorn those with an absence of thought, I look at those capable of mental blankness with uncontrollable envy.  At certain times, I find myself wishing I could just stop thinking about certain things, because some things don't need to be given any thought.  Terrible things happen every day, and horrifying global trends continue their tragic descent; whether on a personal or global level, when a bad occurrence is out of my control, there is nothing productive about ruminating on it for an extensive length of time.  And while training my brain to avoid dwelling on such perilous thoughts is a difficult goal for me, the people who accept life at face value without any advanced thought don't find difficulty in this.  I wish it were easier, and for most people, it actually is.  I wouldn't give up my perfectly capable mind for any reason, but I can't help but covet the luxury of deciding not to think of something if I don't want to think about it.