I Think A Lot

Am I overthinking this? Yes. Well? Maybe.

Jan 16, 2025

During an evening on a groggy day of the pandemic, I played with an Instagram filter where you tilt your head left or right. It asks questions like, “Are you a messy person? Left for yes. Right for no.” After you move your head to answer, a new mundane question pops up. I flew through them. Yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. No. No. I then got one that asked, “Are you an overthinker?” I paused. I stared at the ceiling. Well, in some ways, I can be, but that could also just be me being considerate. Though, it is definitely—well, but perhaps also…Ah! And then, I realized. Left, my head flew.

Years later, I once explained a traumatic experience to my late therapist John (he’s still alive, I just don’t see him anymore). I went through every little bit of the experience and the conclusions I came to from it. I spoke of staring into the busy street, fiddling with the diagnoses of my actually-late loved ones again in my mind, and feeling called toward the asphalt, and then deciding that no, the sidewalk will do. I filled the room with my words and let John know how I recovered from such flirtations with local traffic. He said to me, “Wow, it really seems like you’ve thought this through a lot.”

And to him, I said with my arms gesturing emphatically out of the Zoom screen, “Yeah, John. Whatever my problem is, it doesn’t come from underthinking things.”

The way I process the world is great in many ways. It has taken me this far, and it has helped me look at social problems from a wealth of angles. But I think I have, at times, allowed my overthinking to talk me out of opportunities that I am plenty qualified for.

I recall once applying for a grant with some work colleagues for the AfroFuturist company I am a part of. After looking at past winners, I thought, “Oh yes, we don’t technically meet the qualifications in these half-dozen ways. Maybe this isn’t the right course of action.” Before I could voice that thought, my colleague Ahmed Best cut through and said, “Oh yeah, we can do all of that shit.”

While I do often find benefits in approaching the world cautiously and methodically—one of the two of us has been in a Star War and it’s not me.

My gut tells me that I could stand to do more and think a little less — that maybe much of my planning to create art and planning to reach out to people could be replaced with the bold acts of creating art and reaching out to people.

I have my reservations; maybe there are more angles I could consider. But perhaps it’s best I just stop thinking about it.