If, by definition, a thought, an idea you put into words, cannot ever be put into service, into action, then what is its purpose? The thought may entertain you, even entertain others, but if it is not about something that physically exists in the world outside of you, then it is useless – useless now – useless always. It serves no use; it has no use and it is useless. (Fun, distracting, a topic of conversation and debate – but useless.)
Turn your hearing apparatus to Clear Channel and be instantly aware that 99%+ of what humans talk about has no use and is inherently useless. It can never be changed and made useful. Most of what people write about has no use other than to take someone else’s dog for a walk, (give their mind thoughts to chase other than its own all too familiar tail.)
Men have a native disinclination to face this fact, to think about it, to speak of it or in any way acknowledge it. They rather speak and pretend collectively to believe – to the absolute contrary. Routinely do men preface their remarks with the comment: “Here is some information you can really use,” and then proceed to fearlessly palaver about matters that have no existence outside of the words which man has employed to create them for the theater of his mind.
Examples are so much an ingrained part of the human drama that you do not have to search for them. You cannot get away from them. They engulf you and all of ordinary human mentation. It is certainly useful to study your local holy book so as to know what the gods want you to think, and assuredly useful to listen to the priests so as to get the latest updates and interpretations of the divine’s desires. It is obviously useful to stay abreast of what commentators are writing and saying about the ideological conflicts in the political hot spots of the world, and unquestionably useful to know the experts’ latest thinking on the stock market’s short term future, etc, etc. From ordinary sane men’s mental perspective, all of such matters are important, in the sense that the ideas, the thoughts, the opinions, the “information” being conveyed is of obvious, or at least potential use. (When, from an alert fish eye view – it is not.)
A thought is useful only if it results in action – not the action of producing other thoughts in the hearer, but action in the physical world. In this matter the mind can subtly but most handily fool you (itself), look you and itself innocently right square in the face and pretend to believe that many…a lot…hell most of its thoughts, result in action being taken in your life, when that is transparently not so.
J.