The following is taken from a highly recommended article "Keeping Watch" on the In Search of a New Eden blog. The article deal with the way thoughts come to us and how we understand our thoughts and handle them. At one points do we own them or they own us? Do we mistake what we think and how we think for our nature?
I recommend reading the entire article. It takes less than 10 minutes. I'm thinking about how most of us don't have a true or good view of human nature because we don't understand our own subjective nature. Really, we're better than we think we are.
Many thoughts come to us which are not our own. They may be the thoughts of the adults who raised us when we were children. They may be the thoughts of our culture and society. They may be the impulses of our animal nature. They may be all sorts of things. Pelagius referred to these thoughts as suggestions and counsels. We have an array of thoughts and feelings which present themselves to us at any given moment and make suggestions to our mind. It is our task to choose from among them and this choice can either be one of intentionality or one of habit. Choosing from among them is not always easy, however, as most of these thoughts come to us and are chosen by us without us even being aware. The choosing of thoughts becomes automatic in most people and we end up making choices without even realizing that we are making them. They happen so quickly and so automatically that we have no conscious awareness it is happening at all. When we are keeping watch over our thoughts and being intentional about what kind of world we create in our inner landscape, we are able to step back from these thoughts, realise that they are not actually ours, and choose which ones we wish to claim possession of.
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