It is perhaps easier to spot low-value thoughts than to define the valuable ones — so let’s start from the easier end. These are the mental motions that feel like thinking but rarely lead anywhere:
- Rewinding the past just for the sake of it.
- Imagining the future just for the sake of it.
- Self-imaging — glorifying yourself, through either the past or the future.
- Repeating a problem that has no possible action attached.
- The Einstellung rut — running the same thought again and again with no new insight, often around a problem that is simply intractable for now.
- Problems that are not in your control.
The common thread: the mind keeps spinning while the wheels never touch the road. The way off that train, as far as I can tell, runs through two related moves — settling into inner stillness, and stepping outside yourself to watch the thought as an observer rather than ride along inside it. Either one breaks the loop’s grip long enough to ask: is this going anywhere?
And the probably-valuable thoughts? They share one property: they can lead somewhere — to an action, or to a new understanding. Consolidating and reciting what you learned recently is a good example of the latter. The real problem might simply be discipline: letting the worthless thoughts slide, and trusting yourself to know what is worth thinking about. (A question I keep turning over alongside a friend’s notes.)