Do we think too much about what we think others think or not enough? Will we ever know? Does it even matter?

I was thinking about that all last week and kept posing my questions to my classmates. And I received lots of laughter and eye rolling. And head shaking. And amused chuckles. And the oft-repeated “You over-analyze.”

Which only further annoyed me. Because if they think that I over-analyze, then that means that they don’t care that others care to analyze them. Which means they just don’t care.

And over-analysis is really often just a label we give things that have gone so far in logical linking and argumentation that they seem to have reached a wall in reasoning. However, we usually purport over-analysis as something exorbitant, a mass of netted thoughts that unnecessarily tangle or extend issues to inconsequential matters or maters contrary to the initial point. And the reason we take the latter meaning is that society has a general pre-occupation with the expedient. Like if we can’t measure what’s moral or good, we might as well do what seems relatively good and travels rather quickly.

But anyway, the point of all of this was that “over analysis” label was quite bothersome to me. I realized that under such a label, few of my conversations would pass and people would become more inclined to reject any ideas of mine due to past “over analysis.”

Maybe I would gain more acceptance by revoking these theses of mine and sitting back in haughty disdain and careful carelessness like my other classmates. Like maybe that would stifle the insufferable collective groan emitted from the populace every time I started a sentence with something like “Well...” or “Not really...” or “Ahh, but that would imply...”

So in a fierce quest to become at least slightly more popular (but in a more secret battle to diffuse my ideas), I decided to dilute my burning inclinations to be too expressive. Poor me, succumbing to the peer pressure.

So I woke up the next day and slunk into school with a sort of Zen attitude. Calm, cool, and aplomb. Tolerance, tolerance, tolerance. I chatted with my friends and didn’t argue against them. Even if they’re viewpoints seemed flagrantly wrong. I absorbed everything the teachers said without a single recalcitrant thought flitting through my mind. I smiled at even the most ludicrous things benevolently, making the funny link that if they existed they must be okay.

I should have been given some sort of a prize. They all ate it up! The heaving sighs of understanding, the conspiratorial nods, and the desperately happy laughter that fringed the words of those who feel like they are thwarted daily. They all seemed to label me a bona fide Mother Teresa in my capacity to understand.

And then I gave up around lunch. It was just too much.

But I guess I answered my initial question, right? Because I clearly think too much of what others think if I changed my own attitude to better accommodate my peers.