Overthinking and Underthinking
Why here and why now?
I have read hundreds of books over the course of my life. I love books and I love reading, but I struggle to retain most of what I read. I am sure that my thinking and understanding of life has been shaped by what I read, but I would struggle to describe the most important ideas of the many theology, history and science books I have studied or the storyline of the many fiction books I have read.
On the other hand, I am burdened by a tendency to overthink everything, letting thoughts, worries, frustrations, blurred opinions and part-formed ideas swirl around in my head causing anxiety, anger, depression and negativity. The problem here is that I am overthinking without creating a structure through careful analysis.
During 2023 and 2024 I studied part-time for a MSc and the discipline of reading research papers and distilling them into assignments and a major project demonstrated to me that I can use my intellect and reading to form structured ideas that create a scaffolding for further thought and ideas. Following on from this, in 2025 I began a more thoughtful process of reading, but still fell short of sustained thought and life application, mainly because I lack the confidence to write my own ideas down.
This Substack is my attempt to dig more deeply into the books I read by writing down what I learn from them, to create some kind of order to the whirlwind of ideas in my mind and to break through my lack of self esteem by publishing the result for others to read and comment on.
If you are find this place, and you read the posts that will slowly appear, I hope you enjoy what you read, and please feel free to interact with my developing ideas, because I know I have more to learn, and I am hopeful that we can learn together by our interactions
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