RANDOM THOUGHT - The brain: Automatic Thought Toaster

I'm reading a short story and I'm getting the sense that one of the main characters is a Gen X or Millennial parent.  Guys who I know don't write texts like this parent.  "Give us a call?"  The punctuation is all wrong; it belies anxiety, and then it hit me:

All this modern psychology about expressing ALL of our feelings is probably not in anyone's best interest except the psychologists.  For anyone to express the full range of their REAL feelings everyday would be to admit we're completely out of our own control, and people who can't control themselves are nuts and need supervision.  They need psychological therapy (see how that works?)

I think it's the very act of expressing EVERY little thought, EVERY passing feeling that demonstrates an inability to make a decision about what thoughts passing by are worth believing, holding on to and accepting as our own.  Was it Will Smith or Chris Rock who said if you never thought about strangling your partner, you don't really know what love is?  See, we don't have to act on every thought or feeling.  Just fantasize for a minute and then get back to the real tasks at hand in real life.

I like to think of the brain as an automatic thought toaster.  Thoughts just pop out.  We are under no obligation to believe every single thought that pops to the top of our minds.  Same with feelings.  Feelings just come and go.  It takes real mastery to control one's own feelings and make the positive productive and constructive feelings ones last no matter what circumstances are going on.  (I struck out "positive" because sometimes happy talk is inappropriate.  That and the word itself has become annoying).

Or I also like to think of my mind as a little bit more orderly.  It's more like a Ferris wheel.  Thoughts take a ride and periodically circle their way to the top, hang out for awhile so I can consider them and then the next comes around.  Any thoughts that are no longer welcome or serving me get kicked off the ride - if they're particularly offensive or counterproductive, I can kick them off mid air.  Being immaterial, I can kick thoughts clear across the continent if I want to.

It's entirely possible that less scrupulous psychologists are actually making people sick and anxious.  I have little to back that up with, but that thought will stay on my Ferris wheel until I uncover some factual basis for it.

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