Missing "something"

[Ethereal She-Wolf]

Pardon my lack of eloquence, english is my 3rd language.
Now, I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but please bear with me. Do you ever excessively analyze situation to the point where it doesn't make sense anymore/contradicts itself in some way, so you just keep thinking about it, but then it just keeps making less sense, so your brain "crashes".
I don't know what else to write, that's it, hope someone knows what I'm talking about.

 

[Rixus]

I think I know what you mean. As a Ti dominant, we tend to overthink absolutely everything. I couldn't make a cheese sandwich without overthinking the bread type, slice thickness, butter/margarine type spreading methodology, the cheese type used, the thickness and coverage of the filling...

When it comes to overthinking larger issues, yes I can turn them over and over in my head finding rules and contradictions to those rules and re-writing my understanding and finding new explanations and until there is no sense. I think it's our detailed thought patterns trying to find the intuitive explanation for everything when, in some cases, there is no sense. Some situations and people, in particular, make no sense. I'm not sure about "crashing" at some point, as I'll probably find something else to overthink soon enough. Or if it gets too much, I'll pick some favourite subject to think about and analyse that instead. For example, sometimes it takes my mind off real world problems by analysing my fictitious world from a fantasy series I've been trying to write for some time (although, being INTP, I haven't opened a word processor for it in a long while, but it doesn't mean I won't go back to it). This allows me to create vast and complex worlds and stops me overthinking things of which sense cannot be made.

 

[Cognisant]

I analyze my enemies and the more I understand them the less I hate them but even that compassion turns on itself as I realize I can no more help them than the countless other pitiful strangers out there, ultimately I am one of them.

The search for my life's meaning led to the deconstruction of life, meaning and my self.

I dunno maybe it's just a phase

 

[INTPWolf]

I analyze my enemies and the more I understand them the less I hate them but even that compassion turns on itself as I realize I can no more help them than the countless other pitiful strangers out there, ultimately I am one of them.

The search for my life's meaning led to the deconstruction of life, meaning and my self.

I dunno maybe it's just a phase

It is draining isnt it? almost equal parts draining as it is curious. I have found that much simpler inner mechanics govern the outward complexity of human beings, something that no mere human being is above. My existence is just strange and pitiful as the next guy when viewed from the outside. So when i over analyze things i end up trying to see things from every perspective involved, and can at times mean taking in the accounts of 10+ people, all with mind numbingly simple reasons hidden behind complex vocalizations, interpersonal connections, and actions.

Maybe it is a phase, i myself seem to alternate between dumping all my energy in order to satisfy a curiosity, and just not caring. But, thats me.

 

[Reluctantly]

I get something like that when I think about all the possibilities of what I could be doing. I look at all my options and I see all this potential, but I can only select one or a few of those. Then I start to wonder about what I will lose in selecting those things, in terms of quality of life and overall satisfaction. I end up in this spiral of thinking where I start thinking about what really gives me meaning in life, so I can make the right or optimal choices. But then I feel daunted by everything because there is no inherent meaning behind what I do. The journey of fulfilling is meaning in itself, but once I've done what I set out to do, I'm no longer satisfied. I might even regret doing anything at all based on what I lost from it.

It's a shitty feeling, like I'm missing something important to life, lagging behind or not really getting a sense of progress or fitting into the world like I should. And the only solution seems to be to engross myself into something else, though it's only a temporary solution of course. And it doesn't help that as I get older, I'm running out of more and more time. Existentialism can be a real bitch.

 

[Happy]

I get something like that when I think about all the possibilities of what I could be doing. I look at all my options and I see all this potential, but I can only select one or a few of those. Then I start to wonder about what I will lose in selecting those things, in terms of quality of life and overall satisfaction. I end up in this spiral of thinking where I start thinking about what really gives me meaning in life, so I can make the right or optimal choices. But then I feel daunted by everything because there is no inherent meaning behind what I do. The journey of fulfilling is meaning in itself, but once I've done what I set out to do, I'm no longer satisfied. I might even regret doing anything at all based on what I lost from it.

It's a shitty feeling, like I'm missing something important to life, lagging behind or not really getting a sense of progress or fitting into the world like I should. And the only solution seems to be to engross myself into something else, though it's only a temporary solution of course. And it doesn't help that as I get older, I'm running out of more and more time. Existentialism can be a real bitch.

Yes, I struggled with this for a long time. After a while, and repeatedly suffering for my indecision, I began to realise most decisions are rather inconsequential or not worth feeling regret for. At some point, it just stopped being important and I learned to jump in and hope for the best - and to laugh when things went badly.

I don't have any specific advice, but maybe you ought to take more risks?

 

[Reluctantly]

I don't have any specific advice, but maybe you ought to take more risks?

Maybe. Or at least plan to fail more, heh.

 

[theanonymous]

I'm not sure what to say now that I'm here, but this whole thread was entirely what I came to see if others were experiencing.

What is really worth it? Dying is no good because then you'll just make everyone sad and it's fruitless anyways. But if everything in life leads us to that "crashing" as OP writes about... what are we to go towards? Sometimes I envy the blind comfort religion brings some, then later I remember that stupidity is too high a price to pay for comfort.

As for @happy mentioning taking more risks....... Traveling to the other side of the world type risks don't help this feeling. Neither do other spontaneous things or daring things... I think risk may be allowing yourself to do things without analyzing them or allowing yourself to that point of realizing they are fruitless. To kind of remove all future thoughts and just focus on how they feel in the moment? Not sure... I'm trying this theory out, but it's not proving to be easy.

I'm not sure what else to try though...

 

[Hadoblado]

Is your over-analysis guided by anxiety? Risk taking tends to be a reward driven behaviour, so if you're conservatively analysing without any particular goal in mind, it's likely to avoid undesirable outcomes -> might be anxiety.

That would be consistent with the making less sense over time, and 'crashing' at the end too.

If that's the case, I fall in with Happy in that I jump in and hope for the best, while dismissing the possible negative outcomes. Someone will think I'm an idiot? Sure that's difficult to accept but give me a week and I won't care. It might be a waste of money? Yep, that hurts too but it's only money, and I'm not short of ways to earn it (not with these pretty lips).

In particular, I have to accept that it's okay to be wrong. Publicly even.

 

[Happy]

As for @happy mentioning taking more risks....... Traveling to the other side of the world type risks don't help this feeling. Neither do other spontaneous things or daring things... I think risk may be allowing yourself to do things without analyzing them or allowing yourself to that point of realizing they are fruitless. To kind of remove all future thoughts and just focus on how they feel in the moment? Not sure... I'm trying this theory out, but it's not proving to be easy.

I'm not sure what else to try though...

Not quite the risk taking I was referring to. I'm referring to risk taking that is not necessarily high stakes, but rather the risk of just committing to action. Like, in response to Reluctantly's post describing a paralysis due to multiple possibilities, I was referring to the action of just taking action, committing to a choice, and accepting whatever happens as a result of that choice.

After all, possibilities are worthless if no potential is realised from them. Infinitely generating more won't get you anywhere.

The quintessential NP dilemma, I guess.

In particular, I have to accept that it's okay to be wrong. Publicly even.

I'm generally one to accept when I'm wrong and move on. Something I've come to realise from this is that people don't really remember what you were wrong about, but rather how you respond when you error is exposed.

 

[theanonymous]

I have to accept that it's okay to be wrong. Publicly even.

 

[cheese]

Not quite the risk taking I was referring to. I'm referring to risk taking that is not necessarily high stakes, but rather the risk of just committing to action. Like, in response to Reluctantly's post describing a paralysis due to multiple possibilities, I was referring to the action of just taking action, committing to a choice, and accepting whatever happens as a result of that choice.

After all, possibilities are worthless if no potential is realised from them. Infinitely generating more won't get you anywhere.

The quintessential NP dilemma, I guess.

This is something I'm slowly learning about.

theanonymous,
The trick in the perspective-shift as I understand it is to start to see each possible problem as a surprise adventure. You commit to a choice knowing you haven't planned fully for it (and couldn't possibly plan fully for it anyway), because you look forward to the challenge of coping with whatever comes your way. You start seeing yourself as someone with the ability to deal with whatever comes up. Instead of focusing on hoarding possibilities, none of which ever actualise, you focus on *generating* possibilities through taking action. Each time you make a choice, you create a new set of possibilities from that point which were probably not fully available (or even visible) to you before. If the step you've taken turns out to greatly constrain you from taking another step in a more desired direction, that's simply an even bigger (and therefore more fun) challenge for your possibility-loving brain. Don't hoard - activate and generate.

Yeah, it's definitely very different to big sea changes like moving to the other side of the world. That gives you a shock to the system and might be enough to force a perspective shift, but isn't reliable.

---------

OP
Yeah I've gotten that a lot. In my experience the problem only clarifies itself either through additional experience which provides essential information I was missing, or through an internal (and as far as I can tell, uncontrollable - though I'm working on it) shift revealing previously inaccessible perspectives. I got used to trusting my knots to work themselves out over time pretty early on, though I still get superficially frustrated a lot of the time.

 

[Ex-User (9086)]

What do you mean by "crashes"? I sometimes get strong headaches if I think too much, but I can't relate to making less sense of the topic, I can slow down or get a fever in the worst case of stressful thinking. I can feel anxiety if there's time pressure and the problem is important enough if I'm in a rough place emotionally.

I analyze my enemies and the more I understand them the less I hate them but even that compassion turns on itself as I realize I can no more help them than the countless other pitiful strangers out there, ultimately I am one of them.

This one's very true. Once I understand something or somebody I generally don't feel any particular emotions with regards to it/them, it becomes yet another aspect of daily reality.

 

[Grayman]

Pardon my lack of eloquence, english is my 3rd language.
Now, I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but please bear with me. Do you ever excessively analyze situation to the point where it doesn't make sense anymore/contradicts itself in some way, so you just keep thinking about it, but then it just keeps making less sense, so your brain "crashes".
I don't know what else to write, that's it, hope someone knows what I'm talking about.

I obsessively analyze but contradictions don't exist. Example: I have nothing. Having nothing is a contradiction and is only a product of ignorance of what you do have. Nor is not having something the same as having nothing.