Grind grind grind grind grind...

If there's one thing I'm good at, it's thinking.

There is never a point in the day where I can just shut it down. No matter what I'm doing--dishes, shower, working out, hell, even when I'm watching television and trying to tune out the noise in my head--I cannot turn off the motors. I'm always sizing up whatever info is incoming against my own experience and wrestle with judgments/assumptions/decisions about how that applies to who I should be/become; what I should discard/absorb.

I've always been this way. I can remember as a child having a very active mental life--not just with imaginary friends and the like, because there was that--but I spent a lot of time lying on my bed, in the yard, sitting in a tree, just thinking. About who I was going to be when I grew up, what the heck was going on in more vibrant parts of the world, and why couldn't I be part of it? How was it all gonna play out? The teenage years were obsessed with thinking about how great things were going to be once I blew this popsicle stand, dammit, and when/where was my fabulous life going to begin?

Many years later, I'm just as thought-obsessed as I was back then, albeit with different and possibly more adult subject matter.

But I find the weirdest shit crops up the more I try to think less. This happens mostly when I'm trying to go to sleep and I can't (which is often--like um, now). I obsess about stuff I haven't thought of in years--old unresolved friendship/relationship issues crawl into my head, and I find myself wanting to just jump out of bed, call the offending (or offended) party and say "What the fuck happened?" Or I sit and stew about how little people care for others and how I--one person--can't effect the sort of changes I wish I could. I get frustrated by things I can't go back and fix, and things I wish I could effect if only I had some help. I worry constantly about the state of the planet and humanity; how many animals in the world are suffering. I stupidly obsess over the fact that now I can't send in that awesome spec script that was living in my head to "The Dead Zone," because the fucking show just got canceled. How I choked the two (yes, two, dammit!) opportunities I had to talk to Dave Grohl because I was so goddamned star-struck. I'm then barraged by how little stuff like that matters in the big picture, and my mind shifts to feeling pretty damned guilty.

Many years ago, an old boyfriend and I lay in bed, after a long conversation. Our backs were to each other, and I was still mulling over the disconcerting details of whatever we had been discussing. In the dark, he said: "I can hear your brain working. Relax." It was amusing at the time, but think how it must have sounded in my head if even he could "hear" my inner rumblings. It's a hard load to bear, sometimes.

I certainly picked the right (new) career to aspire to. Philosophic musing comes as naturally to me as being an actor did (and both do require a lot of thought, despite what those new non-Method acting teachers love to tell you). But where too much thinking as an actor can get you into a heap of trouble--instinct is key, I'll admit that--it'll never hurt me in my new vocation. The problem is, will I think so much that I drive myself crazy? It seemed to apply to Nietzsche (well, and the syphillis helped. Thank god I don't have to worry about that).

Check in with me in a few years. I'll have either found my true niche, or I will have cast all aside to join a Buddhist monastery or will pull a disappearing act to India, or something. That's about all I see left for me in terms of handling all these thoughts. But meanwhile, I gotta find a way to temper them enough to fall asleep at a reasonable hour. I'm starting back to school on Thursday--and 4 am blogs, even if assisting in exorcising my thoughts, are not going to assist in dragging my ass out of bed at 7 to get ready for class.

I wouldn't trade the stress that comes from all this for any sort of vacuity. Don't get me wrong. But sometimes, it would be nice to turn down the noise a bit. Alcohol helps sometimes, but that can lead to fatalism if I get enough booze in me, and that's never a good place to operate from. No pharmaceuticals either, thanks--I've taken anti-depressants before, and as I was outlining to someone the other day--I'd rather have the highs and lows than become apathetic, which was the inevitable outcome of that whole venture. Dancing, sex and improv are really the only things where I can be engaged, but not really get too overwhelmed with thinking. They're all very pure pursuits. And as much as I enjoy every one of them, it isn't possible to do any of them 24/7 (as interesting as that goal might be--in every case--you'll wanna take a break eventually).

So, I guess I'll continue to let the machinery whirr and hope that with my continued aspirations, interactions and growth I might eventually come to a place where I don't obsess so much on at least the things I can't change or control.

I have a feeling that will be a lifelong struggle, however. At least there's the sound of my clanking brain to keep me company when I'm all alone with my thoughts.