I love this. It all resonates with my experience so much. As a fellow inveterate overthinker let me toss in a couple more observation.
Here's one: the motivation for "good" overthinking depends on an intuitive sense that the conventional explanation of a situation is shallow or imperfect, and that a deeper, more insightful explanation is …
I love this. It all resonates with my experience so much. As a fellow inveterate overthinker let me toss in a couple more observation.
Here's one: the motivation for "good" overthinking depends on an intuitive sense that the conventional explanation of a situation is shallow or imperfect, and that a deeper, more insightful explanation is possible.
When people resist this kind of thinking, I find it's for a couple reasons. First, as you say, they don't know how to think like this, in that they are uncomfortable with the searching phase, which feels aimless compared to plain old means-end analysis and problem solving. But also, they simply lack that intuitive sense that the conventional explanation is flawed or shallow, and that there is something deeper to search for.
I think this sense is strongly domain dependent.
For instance, if you know some area of mathematics well, you build up your sense of what is the essence of the issue involved in solving a problem. That's why you can tackle it quickly and clearly, instead of grinding through unnecessary calculations to reach the same solution. But it's only through exposure that you build this sense, this intuition, that a deeper insight is possible.
But the same is true in culture, interpersonal affairs, and personal psychology. It's only through time and exposure that one builds up the ability to sense that a deeper insight is possible, and available through productive overthinking.
Because the sense of possibility is so domain dependent, you of course often find people who are onboard for "productive overthinking" in one area, but are impatient with thinking very deeply in another area of life. In the area that interests them less, they just don't see that there's more to see. You can be insightful about linear algebra and shallow about unconscious motivations.
Perhaps we are all "overthinkers" in some areas and not in others, and the interesting distinction between people is how many areas and which areas.
A last observation: one frustration of being an overthinker is the curse of knowledge. Once you've found a compact, simple explanation of an interesting area, the whole area seems simple, less interesting, and not worth thinking about or writing about further. Indeed, looking at everything I've written above, part of me feels, "Well isn't this just a longwinded way of saying *thoughtfulness* is good, some people are more thoughtful than others, and are thoughtful about different things"? Sort of.
I love this. It all resonates with my experience so much. As a fellow inveterate overthinker let me toss in a couple more observation.
Here's one: the motivation for "good" overthinking depends on an intuitive sense that the conventional explanation of a situation is shallow or imperfect, and that a deeper, more insightful explanation is possible.
When people resist this kind of thinking, I find it's for a couple reasons. First, as you say, they don't know how to think like this, in that they are uncomfortable with the searching phase, which feels aimless compared to plain old means-end analysis and problem solving. But also, they simply lack that intuitive sense that the conventional explanation is flawed or shallow, and that there is something deeper to search for.
I think this sense is strongly domain dependent.
For instance, if you know some area of mathematics well, you build up your sense of what is the essence of the issue involved in solving a problem. That's why you can tackle it quickly and clearly, instead of grinding through unnecessary calculations to reach the same solution. But it's only through exposure that you build this sense, this intuition, that a deeper insight is possible.
But the same is true in culture, interpersonal affairs, and personal psychology. It's only through time and exposure that one builds up the ability to sense that a deeper insight is possible, and available through productive overthinking.
Because the sense of possibility is so domain dependent, you of course often find people who are onboard for "productive overthinking" in one area, but are impatient with thinking very deeply in another area of life. In the area that interests them less, they just don't see that there's more to see. You can be insightful about linear algebra and shallow about unconscious motivations.
Perhaps we are all "overthinkers" in some areas and not in others, and the interesting distinction between people is how many areas and which areas.
A last observation: one frustration of being an overthinker is the curse of knowledge. Once you've found a compact, simple explanation of an interesting area, the whole area seems simple, less interesting, and not worth thinking about or writing about further. Indeed, looking at everything I've written above, part of me feels, "Well isn't this just a longwinded way of saying *thoughtfulness* is good, some people are more thoughtful than others, and are thoughtful about different things"? Sort of.