Consider for a moment that you know someone who is kind, caring, and is all around an exemplary person. One day, you discover that you can read minds and decide to read this person’s mind to find out how they can be so nice. To your surprise, you discover that their thoughts aren’t always as pure as their actions. Sometimes they think about doing terrible things, or they think about people in disgusting ways. My question is then, is this person a good person? Are their actions the thing that really matters, or do their thoughts reveal some aspect of their true nature? While identity and human nature are complicated subjects, I would posit that thoughts, no matter the subject, are nothing more than what you make them. 

Now more than ever, we are being bombarded with more information than we know what to do with. It is an enormous task for our brains to process and filter that information. Our brains automate some of these processes so our heads don’t overheat and explode. Sometimes thoughts are a result of these automatic processes, and sometimes those thoughts do not reflect our values. It is the job of the forebrain to filter and reflect on those thoughts and decide if they are helpful or unhelpful. Sometimes it can be distressing to have intrusive thoughts. The O in Obsessive Compulsive Disorder refers to obsessions, recurring intrusive thoughts that cause distress. OCD is an extreme example of this, but you can probably think of a time when you’ve thought something bad and then immediately felt bad about it. If these thoughts get to a point where they are causing you significant distress, there are resources available to help change those patterns of thought. 

The point is that intrusive thoughts, negative thoughts, or any kind of thoughts are just that: thoughts. They are not revelations or glimpses into the true self. They are not cracks in the facade of civility we put up. They are reactions to billions of different stimuli all vying for space in the brain. A thought isn’t true because we think it. Oftentimes, thoughts are not based entirely on reality. The logical brain is there for a reason. We are remarkable in our capacity to take a step back and consider our thoughts. Metacognition refers to the ability to think about thoughts. While possibly not unique to humans, we certainly do it the best. What we do with our thoughts, I think, is much more important than the thoughts themselves.