On The Charge of Overthinking

When Intellectualizing Goes Too Far

It is not uncommon to hear the charge of overthinking thrown about—often in the form of advice or rebuke.

“Quit thinking so hard about it, and just enjoy,” we are told.

“It’s just a punctuation mark, you’re overthinking it,” we advise our friend in the midst of a new romance (who is reading remarkably far into the fact that a sentence was suddenly written using a period at the end).

As I inch closer and closer to graduation, I have been thinking about how to healthily integrate the insights and methods of philosophy into my life. This has taken various forms. For instance, I’ll often share, in conversation or in a moment when I am turned to for advice, the words or theory of a philosopher. “Ahh yes, this problem reminds me of so-and-so…” Or, I’ll ask philosophical questions about something I am doing. This or this older essay is a good example of this.

In my attempts to do so, however, I have, at times, been faced with precisely this charge: of overthinking. It’s quite possible that, even in reading some of my essays, something similar has come to your mind. Or maybe it’s a charge that’s been levied against you.

Today, I want to explore this a bit more. What is overthinking, and when is it bad?

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I have in mind a very specific phenomenon. I’m going to need to ask you to indulge me for just a moment.

Architecture is such an incredible field. To learn about it is to learn about the world around us—the built world, that is.

Let’s take a walk.

c. Wikipedia

Wow! Would you look at that? A faded advertisement.

Ghost Signs. You’ve seen them, right? I found that until my attention was drawn to them, I would see them but never notice them. One day, though, a teacher inspired me to look. He pushed me to ask questions about them. Sort of like what I’m about to do with you: Why the hell did they paint on brick? Wouldn’t a billboard have been easier for a whole set of reasons?

Now, I’m not going to pretend to know the answers. It’s not immediately clear, for instance, why Coca-Cola preferred to have its painted-brick signs on the ground floor of pharmacy buildings. (This article implies it was to prevent potential customers from crinking their necks…)

Regardless of the answers, such questions open a can of intention. I mean this literally. What were once paintings on buildings to be looked over, not unlike graffiti, become, with an inquisitive and curious eye, mysteries to be unfolded and questions to be answered. They are, upon examination, filled with intentional choices. Coming to learn to appreciate them is quite magical. A long walk can be filled with these questions (What is this? Why is this the way it is?), and is sure to be made all the better for it.

Of course, this is not an architecture article (sorry!) or a walk. All this is to provide some background for a question. Have we just now overthought? We’ve taken a piece of the world, in this case a piece of architecture or design, and taken it quite seriously. Is this a mistake? Should we be walking with a quieter mind? After all, we’ve just gone for a stroll around the block. This is surely far too cerebral.

Such a charge, at least in my mind, is far from obvious. In fact, it seems to me that by appreciating the Ghost Sign—the history behind it, the various choices that went into its being as it is: placing it on the ground floor, having it face us only when we’re coming from this direction, and so on—we’ve just had quite a good time.

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So thinking deeply about something is not necessarily overthinking, at least in its normal, pathological meaning. Thinking deeply about the ghost sign, for instance, helps us to appreciate it more.

So what, then, is overthinking? When is it bad? I want to suggest that, actually, we’ve just answered this question. We were cautious to call our engagement with the Ghost Sign pathological or overthinking because our thought about it did not take away from our walk or our engagement with the art. Rather, it made our engagement with it possible altogether and spiced up our walk!

Overthinking, then, represents the set of cases where the opposite occurs. Where thinking about something takes away from our engagement with it. These cases arise, I think, when we stop appreciating something on an intellectual level—like we did with the ghost signs, asking, for instance, questions about the intentions behind it—and instead begin to appreciate or focus on thinking itself. For instance, a person who goes to a play and is entirely focused on his reactions. In such cases, we are overthinking in as much as our thought, itself, serves as a distraction and takes away from its very object.

So, perhaps people give thoughtfulness and deep thinking too bad a rap. As long as we are careful and do not fall into narcissism, rumination about our own thoughts, then they offer us a clear way to appreciate the world. No pathology required!