“Over”thinking

[aeon]

It's difficult to know when another person is making a fair and legitimate critique in this regard sometimes.
Easily dismissible for INFJs who's professional business is itself overthinking.
Somebody's gotta be at one end of the spectrum and it's surely Ni users.

When you’re a wee lad and your E5 INTP mom tells you that you’re intellectualizing things, that cuts hard and deep, yo.

Ruff,
Ian

 

[aeon]

1) People who can't figure out or decide something fairly trivial, who become obsessed with solving their own conundrum without asking others for help. They overcompensate for their lack of ability with pig headed pride. For example, a retail worker who can't get a receipt to print, and won't hand over the purchase until they can get the now unwanted receipt to print, and refuse the help of coworkers.

2) People who can think but because of anxiety become obsessed with trivial perfectionism, and end up neglecting the big picture. (Those who allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good). For example, people who will try to plan the perfect vacation, but never end up going anywhere because they're permanently stuck in planning.

Both of these are common trauma response presentations in those reared by a malignant narcissist.

Just Sayin’,
Ian

 

[ThomasJ79]

I agree wholeheartedly, but I am one who does not get anxious about not knowing a truth, because what can I know? How can I be sure?

I have found a way to aspire and dig, yet rest comfortably in ambiguity, and know that no matter how much I learn, I will only gain better perspective to apprehend the depth of my ignorance.

Cheers,
Ian

I think that’s the joy of ambiguity. Beyond hunches, you just don’t know if there is an answer, but keep working at it anyways. There is so much to be known.

 

[carbon14]

I'm always overthinking, but I'm just thinking. Other people think I'm overthinking when they hear my thought process. I was also confused when people said "That's deep". I was confused, because doesn't everyone think that deep? I sound pretty selfish typing this out, but this is what I legitly thought.

 

[Wyote]

My personal opinion is that more people need to spend more time thinking more deeply.
But the people that could benefit most from doing so are generally incapable of seeing its value and/or implementing more of it in a meaningful practical way.

 

[Wyote]

I don't really buy the idea that thinking deeply is some sort of luxury either.
The things you are afforded to be able to think about are where the luxury can be found.

 

[John K]

Well said @Wyote

And I think that people who are good at thinking should value it, just as someone who has a gift for precision agility should value that.
All these gifts need to be kept fit and health by plenty of use. Ignore folks who don't appreciate it - I don't appreciate big social gatherings, but everyone to their own thing!

 

[Elder]

What are your thoughts on the word overthinking and how it is used? Do you see the word being used in a negative or neutral way?

I see that description being used as a moral judgment of right/wrong versus a value judgment of "I am uncomfortable with the amount of time and energy you give to thinking things over".

I do not value the use of language like this because I see it as abdication of personal responsibility for people's own experience.

Very common trap for us all to fall into though, in my experience and observations.

But have you noticed how people don’t get accused of over-feeling in the same way.

I see it differently. I think people are commonly judged for over-feeling, the language is usually, "You're too sensitive." Usually it is followed by some admonition to "buckle up, buttercup," stop being a "snowflake" or other pejorative statements.

In fact I can’t help thinking that those who accuse a contemplative person of over-thinking are themselves over-feeling about it!

I would agree that it is actually about the other person's experience not being owned.

Which has more to do with the other person's own feelings of inadequacy, hence using the term pejoratively.

Yes. I agree that the judgment is about the experience of the other. I have learned to image these things as a white box wrapped in red ribbon that is full of the other person's shit. I envision giving them back their "gift" and declining to hold their shit for them.

 

[John K]

I see it differently. I think people are commonly judged for over-feeling, the language is usually, "You're too sensitive." Usually it is followed by some admonition to "buckle up, buttercup," stop being a "snowflake" or other pejorative statements.

You're right of course - excuse my hyperbole . Someone who takes time into thinking deeply and correctly about something can be accused of over-thinking, when they are actually being more complex and accurate but slower that others. It's parallel to someone who takes considerable and appropriate care to work out what are the correct values and their implication for behavioural choices, and is accused of being too scrupulous. Both of these can get lost in a labyrinth of excess too if they go off the rails.

On a broader note - I wonder if others with tertiary Ti have the same experience as me with thoughts that sometimes seem to take on a life of their own? It's worse at night, but it can happen any time of the day that I find I have limited conscious control over what I'm thinking at that moment, and the thoughts just persist - usually with some kind of emotional backdrop. It can occasionally be hard to stop them without actually distracting myself with something completely different. Maybe all tertiary functions have this semi-involuntary behaviour?

 

[ThomasJ79]

I see it differently. I think people are commonly judged for over-feeling, the language is usually, "You're too sensitive." Usually it is followed by some admonition to "buckle up, buttercup," stop being a "snowflake" or other pejorative statements.

 

[Elder]

On a broader note - I wonder if others with tertiary Ti have the same experience as me with thoughts that sometimes seem to take on a life of their own? It's worse at night, but it can happen any time of the day that I find I have limited conscious control over what I'm thinking at that moment, and the thoughts just persist - usually with some kind of emotional backdrop. It can occasionally be hard to stop them without actually distracting myself with something completely different. Maybe all tertiary functions have this semi-involuntary behaviour?

I definitely relate. Insomnia used to be a regular companion for me due to the spinning thoughts. The best way I have found to manage it is to very intentionally get mindful about my physical environment. Like "Notice how the pillow feels on your cheek." Only then, when I intentionally focus my thought energy in this way, am I able to fall asleep.

I am not sure about the cognitive function aspect, but it makes sense to me.

Interesting that often it is my Se intentionally brought forward that pulls me from the spinning thoughts.

 

[Sidis Coruscatis]

Unless we define the specific situation and content of the thinking, then this discussion is less about overthinking and more about an excuse to vent intellectual pride.

Yes, overthinking exists. There's an easy way to identify it: Does your "just thinking" bear good fruit in solving a problem, personal development, facilitating an effective exchange of ideas for mutual benefit, or does it only produce anxiety or other negative emotion?

There's a degree of faith in providence necessary for living well because the future is too complex to be knowable. So if overthinking means the insistence on further analysis and having more data before action, the negative connotation is warranted because it's self-destructive. There are other kinds, like philosophical overthinking (trying to be deep about things that are either impossible to know outside of direct experience, things that are impossible to know because of the finite nature of the universe and the mind, or things that have no practical implications whatsoever), or something like trying to ascribe various motivations or underlying meanings to someone's words instead of just asking them for clarification.

All of these instances are either useless or deleterious. That's what constitutes overthinking as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Wyote]

All of these instances are either useless or deleterious.

I'm with you on your other statements but don't you think that there is some utility in stretching the mind outside the box?
Sometimes what might appear fruitless can spur tangential ideas that are/will be fruitful.
Granted, it probably shouldn't be the majority of your pontificating.

 

[John K]

It's hard to judge quite often. For example, there are great swathes of mathematics that are completely introverted - ie have no known application outside themselves - and consume thousands of hours of what can look like obsessive thinking to an outsider. Some of this gets into the public domain, such as when Fermat's Last Theorem was finally disproved a few decades ago - it took 129 pages of crystallised thought to present the proof and that will be only the tip of the iceberg of the thought that went into it, building on hundred's of years of failed attempts by not a few mathematicians. Only a handful of people in the world will be able to follow the thinking. And when you look at what was disproved, most people wouldn't really understand what it actually signifies, or couldn't care less if they do.

Yet an even weirder branch of maths was developed in the early to mid 19th century by a couple of mathematicians who got fixated on curved space. This was just as obscure and removed from practical significance as Fermat's theorem - until another 60 or 70 years later, Einstein, helped by the mathematician Grossmann, realised it was the very tool he needed in which to express the mathematical heart of General Relativity, the theory of space, time and gravity that superseded Newtonian mechanics.

Thing is, we often only ever hear about the weird thought obsessions that actually bear spectacular practical fruit. For every one of these, there will be have been thousands of people with deep pits of obsessive thought they have dug out with their lives, but which have gone nowhere.

And you can't tell in advance which are which, because of necessity, many truly innovative, paradigm-breaking ideas sound like life-wasting nonsense to most contemporaries.

 

[Sidis Coruscatis]

I'm with you on your other statements but don't you think that there is some utility in stretching the mind outside the box?
Sometimes what might appear fruitless can spur tangential ideas that are/will be fruitful.
Granted, it probably shouldn't be the majority of your pontificating.

It depends on what you're trying to accomplish. A natural part of conversation could be going into unsubstantiated hypotheses that either spin off into something more helpful or simply serve as means to spend quality time with someone. The best works of art are not made by thinking about art as an activity, but as a culmination of experiences from everyday life that aren't immediately obvious.

I can tell you exactly what I mean by pointless thinking because I see it often in Christian discussions. Someone will latch on something fuzzy like the nature of hell and then argue to the point of antagonizing everyone. It doesn't change the marching orders, it doesn't change how we should behave, it just distracts from what is important. It's not necessary to have answers to everything. I called it intellectual pride, and that's a good way of thinking about it; being possessed to claim secret knowledge to elevate oneself externally or internally instead of serving.

The MBTI communities are rife with this problem as well. Surely you remember how many times someone went through mental gymnastics to make their type the core of every problem. Sometimes this includes self-deprecation, sometimes the aim is contempt for society. You can craft a vast philosophical web that requires a lot of thought, but if the motivation is resentment or self-service, you're already in trouble even if it generates more ideas. We are not rational, we rationalize what we have already accepted in our heart.

 

[Matty]

I see that description being used as a moral judgment of right/wrong versus a value judgment of "I am uncomfortable with the amount of time and energy you give to thinking things over".

I do not value the use of language like this because I see it as abdication of personal responsibility for people's own experience.

Very common trap for us all to fall into though, in my experience and observations.



I see it differently. I think people are commonly judged for over-feeling, the language is usually, "You're too sensitive." Usually it is followed by some admonition to "buckle up, buttercup," stop being a "snowflake" or other pejorative statements.




I would agree that it is actually about the other person's experience not being owned.



Yes. I agree that the judgment is about the experience of the other. I have learned to image these things as a white box wrapped in red ribbon that is full of the other person's shit. I envision giving them back their "gift" and declining to hold their shit for them.

Overthinking, as a criticism, is mostly connected with impending action, or lack thereof. This is similar to the prompt, "less talk, more work."

Ultimately, perhaps in the way people who prefer extroverted intuition may talk a lot, but get little done, introverted intuition users might get similar ire and impatience.

 

[Wyote]

The best works of art are not made by thinking about art as an activity, but as a culmination of experiences from everyday life that aren't immediately obvious.

It's not necessary to have answers to everything. I called it intellectual pride, and that's a good way of thinking about it; being possessed to claim secret knowledge to elevate oneself externally or internally instead of serving.

We are not rational, we rationalize what we have already accepted in our heart.

I dig it. Thanks for the elaboration/clarification

 

[Elder]

can’t count how many times I have told that I overthink. I find this to be used pejoratively to stymie the time I spend on thinking. Just because you do not spend as much time thinking about something, it doesn’t follow that I am “over” thinking. From my perspective, it is just thinking.

Another angle on this that I would like to highlight is that the ultimate arbiter of whether it is "too much" or "over-" is you. You're the only one walking in your own skin. You're the only one who truly knows your own resources and boundaries. If it's getting in the way of you living your values, then maybe it's worth considering a change. If it's just rubbing against someone else's values, then it's their job to decide how they want to move around you.

From the way you describe the situation, it sounds like you feel pretty values-aligned. If so, let others work out their own stuff.

I have walked away from situations where there was a values clash and the other wasn't going to shift. I honored their values and recognized mine were different. To be healthy I just needed more space.

I have been in other situations where I have shifted my own way of showing up because I saw I could shift and still be values-aligned and that shifting for that situation was itself values-aligned.

I think you were asking a broader, more rhetorical question and I chose to answer the only question where I saw there was a more universal answer.

Just a few more thoughts that are values-aligned for me. Ponder as you will.

 

[Anomalous]

It does sound like something someone might say to invalidate the struggles of a perspective they don't understand, but I also think that this is a common misuse of the term.

I imagine overthinking as something like anxiety or a lack of self discipline as it applies to your own thoughts. A possible overcompensation to lacking a sense of control in the external world. Feeling unable to act leaves your mind with with no external input and therefore no other option than to restlessly feed on itself.

However, not every thought has to lead to definite action or an immediate conclusion for it to be useful or valuable.

 

[aeon]

So, thinking is what people do.

If it really is over the top, it is part of the presentation of a mental process to be determined by a clinician. As such, it is not the primary action, but something secondary to a primary disorder or disease of acute or chronic nature.

Sorted!

Actually, overthinking is what happens when you upshift that little stick by your pituitary gland such that it comes to rest in the position marked “overdrive.”

Some models instead have a dial with numeric markings from zero to the problematic eleven.

Who twiddles these controls? The neuronal gremlins which like to party when you haven‘t gotten proper sleep.

My Tuppence,
Ian