What are deep thoughts?

They could be anything.
Logical. Poetic. Emotional.
More meaningful, really.

I don’t think it’s so much that they’re logical. I really do see them as the opposite of what I think of as ‘surface thoughts’. Compare these lines of thought:

Hm, I wonder what’s for dinner? I hope it’s not meatloaf. I should call mom and ask.
————————————-
Hm, I wonder what we could do to feed the hungry in our city? The problem is so big… I hope it’s not impossible. I should investigate, and see what options there are.

In the first scenario, your thoughts are surface thoughts, and easily brought to a conclusion… call mom and you’re done. In the second, your thoughts go deeper than a surface issue, and likely lead to a whole lot more thought, rather than an immediate action that brings the train of thought to a conclusion.

I don’t think deep thoughts have to be about world hunger or anything, they could be completely self-concerned, too. It’s just that the thoughts inspire a whole lot more thinking.

Deep thoughts usually put you under the illusion that you’re trapped in your own realm, or, dimension, rather. It’s potentially the only place where you feel at peace. You can think about things that grasp 98% of your focal attention, and you’d never feel it. You think about things you’ve never thought of before; like the state of this world, etc.

It feels so good.

If trees could scream…would we be so cavalier in cutting them down?
We might…if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.

By Jack Handey….

Someone in my life used to tell me, Snowberry, you’re so….deep!

I learned to answer, “And the opposite of deep is?...” He never had an answer for me.

Sometimes it’s helpful to take a look at the opposite of the word to get better insight. In my situation, this person liked to keep conversation on a surface level. Just keep it light, no issues to discuss, thank you.

On the other hand, I always like to look at the motivation behind an action. If I can understand a person, it helps me to have compassion for them. It’s much more satisfying to me.

“Shallow” thought makes liberal use of assumptions without questioning the validity of those assumptions. “Deep” thought probes those underlying assumptions, asking whether they’re really true.

Our view of reality is built on layer upon layer of assumptions. The deeper layers rarely get questioned because they seem to be so fundamentally necessary to “the way things are”, that it would never occur to most people to ask whether that’s really the case. When you start poking at those root assumptions, interesting things often happen, things that have a profound impact on how the world is seen. That’s the realm of deep thought.

@iamthemob Has it! That’s the first thing I thought of: Jack Handey, who I knew through SNL.

“Deep thoughts” is a cliche. So much so, that a computer was named Deep Thought. I think it was one of IBM’s chess-playing computers. That’s deep, isn’t it?

Deep, of course, means intense and complex and complicated and very insightful in this context. So if you’re a deep thinker, you do more complex and insightful thinking than most people.

The problem is that many deep thoughts are expressed in a very undeep kind of way. They sound deep, but they aren’t. Thus they become caricatures of themselves. You can say things like… well, Here’s a page of Jack Handey’s Deep Thoughts.

I’d say it is entertaining the really “big” questions of life and having an insatiable thirst for truth and knowledge.

I don’t want to go deep all the time, but, I also can find myself frustrated with those that never entertain any thoughts deeper than ” OMG! I have to clean my house & go grocery shopping today!” lol

I have one really “deep” esoteric friend that meets my need for exploration and pow wowing on a myriad of topics/philosophies, the rest are just casual ” come on over for some wine and chit chat” and then, there is Fluther. haha

Deep thoughts are the thoughts that have the potential to changes or anchors your perception of Life in general….

Thus they are the ones that “mean” something…

Stop breeding beyond immediate means.

Stop dumping crap into the waterways.

Put rapists, child molesters and torturers to sleep.

Deep thoughts:

Deep thought 1

Deep thought 2

so

Deep thought 3

Looking beyond the appearances of things. Exploring motives. Pondering spirituality. Truly thinking for one’s self. Questioning media.

Deep thoughts can bring about epiphanies or startling realizations. Here is one I had yesterday that I shared on my facebook account. It is an example of a deep and personal idea that sprouted in my mind. I bet we all have thoughts like this some times or at least are capable of if we sit quietly.

“I am less convinced that having a state of being or a mindset or a mood trumps the ability to just be aware that I am alive or to “just be”. That awareness is the one constant aspect of life I’ve experienced so far. I will enjoy it while I’m here and whenever I feel it is present in me. I am a little creeped out that my “essence” is unexpectedly apparent. I was just eating the last slice of cold pizza.”