Drowning in a Flood of Thoughts

And so it was when anyone tried to speak: their minds become tangled in remembrance.  Words became floods of thoughts with no beginning or end, and would drown the speaker before he could reach the life raft of the point he was trying to make.  It was impossible to remember what one meant, what, after all of the words, was intended.

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, 2002.

I haven't done much blogging, or even all that much reading, but in the final chapers of this book, I was hit by the short passage.  That is such an incredibly poignant anology of drowning in thoughts before reaching the life raft of the point one is trying to make.  I feel that I have experienced this myself, and perhaps you will have too.  It always astounds me when someone can explain the feeling of something I've felt, but could never explain. 

I've been thinking a lot about deep and meaningful things, perhaps prematurely.  Thoughts about the reality of growing old and either getting to do the things I wanted to do with my life or missing those oppertunities; the idea of bringing up a child of my own, obviously very much in the future, but how can one bring up a child so they're not messed up; living a life upon choices made by others, but trying to still work out my own dreams or writing my own books and reading stories; am I doing the right thing going along with my parent's plan of my becoming a teacher?; the ability to even express what my doubts are in intelligible form; the concept of love and loving the idea of something and someone; plans to go to France; how can I be a person that people would actually want to love?; what are my talents for and how do I work with them to create something?; will I ever come up with an idea for a book that I can actually work with?; what is inspiration and creativity?; what sort of writer will I be?; the thought that perhaps I will never get to read to anyone other than my dad; what is it that I actually want? 

What are you thinking about?