aren't you too big for the sidewalk?

one of the many things that most if not all of human beings have problems with is understanding.

of course this problem is often deemed to be not as significant as opening a can of corned beef (essential for survival), resisting sexual urges (essential to prevent overpopulation), or doing dishes right after you're done eating (essential for sanitation, as well as sanity), but this is simply because no one has bothered to think of it as a problem. people who did realize this as a problem often decided to announce it to the entire world and write a book about it, but those books tend to get cluttered in the "self-help" and "relationship" section and the authors casted away as lunatics.

the problem with understanding is that everyone is aware of it as something that they have to do, but no one is actually doing it; they just think that they are. to complicate matter even further, add the egoistic nature of human beings into the equation, and you have something that is just about as unsolvable as a transcedental equation with two variables. and no, no graphical method on this.

human beings think. we think. descartes said "i think, therefore i am." thinking is a privilege; it is okay to think. but we often take advantage of this god-given privilege and actually take one step further down the line to think about how OTHER PEOPLE think. this is where things usually start to go wrong. you can't. everyone's mind is unique to oneself, and unless you are some fictional character or some abnormal human being by my definition, there is no chance in heaven, hell, or purgatory you can know what someone else is thinking. see, sometimes, a person doesn't even have the ability to know what he himself is thinking, or why he is thinking what he is thinking. if you are still having problems with this, don't even think about trying to take one step further and think about what others are thinking. it would be like taking lagrangian mechanics without ever having taken a physics class in your life. it is just not doable.

if you think this is bad enough, think again. often times, we even crossed the thick, bright, reflective red line between taking advantage of the god-given privilege and actually threatening to be given more by thinking about what other people think WE think. then all hell breaks loose. at this point, even the devil himself would probably come up to you and say, "man, you're fucked up as shit." this is analogous to someone who failed elementary school, yet insisted to go on to middle school, failed that also, then insisted to go on to highschool, failed that as well, and still insisted to go on to college. i've never been so glad such a thing as standardized testing exists.

of course, it is only human that we speculate about how others think, and by doing so, speculating how others think we think. we are all strategists in a sense; we all want to plan out our course of action such that we have the maximum advantage over everyone else in the battlefield. but here's something that you and the rest of the people in the world have to realize: some people are good strategists, some people suck. and here's another thing to know: there are more sucky strategists than there are good ones. much much more. so it is safe to say that there is a bigger probability that you will fall into the sucky category. therefore, if ever you find yourself thinking about how other people are thinking, please cease and decease. if this fails and you find yourself thinking about what other people think you think, please do anything humanly possible to stop this, even if it involves hurting yourself.

cognitive scientists have fancy names for this. anything that involves you thinking is called cognition, and anything that involves you thinking about how others think is called meta-cognition. i have different terms for this. anything that involves you thinking is called good, anything that involves you thinking about how other people think is called stupid, and anything that involves you thinking about how other people think you think is called fucked up.

cease and decease. only then you can have a peace of mind your little subconsciousness has always craved for. there is a story that supports this notion. i will post later after i get home since the book is at home.