Unburdened by Thought
Sept 8 2026
He called it the tug of thought.
As if there was a force of attraction
in all that gauzy business
going on in the brain
— thoughts grabbing your attention,
ideas, like asteroids
either pulled into orbit
or cratering down.
Lighter thoughts drift off
while heavy ones lean in,
like Sumo wrestlers
battling with their weight.
There is no escape velocity
from the thoughts that circle back
time and time again,
from the the crushing cacophony
of anxious rumination
intention and regret.
Too bad the good ones
are too airy to stick.
Thoughts
that are stronger than gravity
and the nuclear force,
more powerful
than electromagnetic attraction.
And while drugs may loosen them
alcohol soften the landing,
thoughts still pull on you
like a tidal force.
If only I could free fall,
so detached
and so emptied of thought
I’d be lost in space
and never come down.
But I’m no master of Zen
and the only kind of thoughtlessness I’ve ever known
was when I never sent a thank-you note,
put that empty carton of milk
back in the fridge.
Because how can you empty your mind
when even in sleep
there is no dreamless rest?
When to truly clear your head
would leave you scatterbrained,
every thought as vacuous
as the void of outer space?
I was reading an article about the adverse effects of meditation, and that simple expression — the “tug of thought” — stuck with me. (Yes, there are apparently lots of adverse effects. And they’re neither rare nor minor. Something that I must admit, as someone who doesn’t practice meditation and is bad at it when he tries, I was rather pleased to learn!)
I find thoughts always intrude. There’s no off-switch for me. So this incessant tug sounded analogous to a force like gravity: omnipresent and inescapable, as if we were fish and it was the water we swim in.
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