Thoughts and feelings arise on their own, so pride or shame in them isn’t justified

I’m a pretty good writer and speaker. Words are my thing. Or rather, one of my things. Musical and artistic ability — that’s decidedly not my thing. The same is true for all of us. Not in the same way as me, of course. We’re all different, with unique strengths and weaknesses.

But no matter what those may be — what we’re good at and what we’re bad at — there’s good reason to believe that pride or shame isn’t really justified when it comes to our thoughts, feelings, actions, and perceptions.

In explaining why I feel this way, I’ll use myself as an example, because that’s the person I’m most familiar with. However, I encourage you to consider your own life as another example that, I strongly suspect, will lead you to the same conclusion, if you clearly and carefully look at your own thoughts, feelings, actions, and perceptions.

Whether it’s writing or speaking, words come naturally to me. Wherever I worked, it didn’t take long before I was doing much of the writing for the organization. I started to read and write at an unusually young age. I’ve continued writing for my entire life. Public speaking is similarly easy for me. The words just flow.

I readily admit that I have enjoyed the compliments I’ve received about my ability to write and speak. Yet with age, and hopefully some increased wisdom, it’s more difficult for me now to take pride in this. The same applies to my screwups and weaknesses, albeit in reverse. It’s become harder for me to feel shame at what I’ve messed up.

The reason is that through a combination of introspection and my readings in both neuroscience and philosophy, I’ve come to realize that my thoughts, feelings, actions, and perceptions arise on their own. Meaning, not through my conscious volition. They simply happen, even though I can conjure up explanations for what I’ve thought, felt, and done.

(Perceptions need no explanation, being obviously outside of my control; the sight of our dog or the hearing of a car engine is simply there; I do nothing to make them happen.)

When I talk with someone, the conversation just happens. I don’t sense like I’m controlling the words that come out of my mouth. They simply appear from unknown depths of my brain. Even when I’m thinking, I need to say such-and-such, that thought also arises unbidden. So the words of such-and-such didn’t come from my conscious will, since the need to say them sprang from an unknown source.

Again, by no means am I saying this is God or any other supernatural entity. It’s my own brain that is orchestrating my thoughts, feelings, and actions that result in words being written or spoken. A distinct memory of this was when, many years ago, I came home from college on a Christmas break needing to write a lengthy paper that I’d been putting off.

I set up a card table in the living room. I got out a pen and paper. (No computers way back then.) And in a flash, the paper was written. It just appeared in my mind, the whole structure of it. Not every detail, of course. I still had to write the paper. However, it felt like I was transcribing thoughts into words that already existed.

Yes, I know this sounds weird. But I suspect this isn’t all that different from how a musician may hear a new song in their head, or an artist perceives a new painting. Work still has to be done to complete the creation, but the creative act began, and in a sense, ended, in a flash of intuitive insight.

Here’s an excerpt from the “You Didn’t Make it, But You Have To Eat It” chapter in Robert Saltzman’s book, The Ten Thousand Things, that echoes the theme of this blog post.

Words come from language that I learned by imitation as a child and keep on learning even now from other people’s words. So “my” words are really not mine, but words I have heard and now repeat. Words circulate. They are passed around as shared objects, not actually originating in any individual mind, but held commonly in the human mind.

If that is seen, it’s only a short step to noticing that ideas circulate in the same manner — ideas are passed around as shared objects — so that thoughts involving those ideas are not at bottom my thoughts either, even if they seem to be. Once you see that, the “independent self” no longer seems so independent, does it?

For many of us, “myself” means the body along with whatever feelings and thoughts arise habitually — particularly the kinds of thoughts called memories. I may be accustomed to calling those thoughts and feelings “mine,” but are they? I don’t make them, nor do I choose them. They arise on their own, spontaneously coming to awareness whether I want them to or not.

When I say “awareness,” I mean an instantaneous, automatic knowing without any trying to know. If you doubt this, just sit quietly for a few minutes and observe the stream of consciousness without either trying to think anything or trying not to. You will soon see what I mean.

Nevertheless, for many of us, as thoughts and feelings bubble up naturally and unbidden, a “me” quickly takes credit — or blames itself — for them, as if a self-directed, self-governing, autonomous myself somehow produced and controlled thoughts and feelings, moment by moment, choosing and deciding what to think and feel, and what not to think and feel.

…By way of illustration, imagine a typical “good Christian” who finds himself fantasizing about sex with a stranger he passes perchance in the park. He is likely to feel ashamed of the sin of lust, and the “adultery in his heart” — and all the more if the stranger happens to be another man. He will feel guilty, as if those fantasies, which arose inadvertently and unbidden, had been his choice, and therefore his responsibility as their chooser.

But that man never decided to have sexual thoughts and feelings; they just appeared. All of that comes upon us like fate. You feel what you feel when you feel it. No one is to blame for any of this, and no one deserves credit either. In each moment, what is, is, including “myself,” and cannot be otherwise.