You Are Not Your Thoughts

But tell that to your thoughts

Rifky Nur Setyadi for Unsplash+

Did you ever notice that cartoon speech bubbles are drawn as a solid oval or rectangle with a single pointed tail directed toward the speaker? And thought bubbles are shaped like clouds with small circles aimed at the thinker?

A meditation teacher might say, “You are not your thoughts.” They usually do not mean that you have no thoughts or that thoughts are bad. They mean that your thoughts are experiences you have, not your essential identity. Clouds have no interesting content to think about unless you’re a meteorologist. So clouds are a useful metaphor for thoughts in meditation.

I know I don’t have to believe my thoughts — that I don’t even know where my thoughts come from — and that I don’t have any control over my thoughts. I learned this through years of meditation.

But it was only a few days ago that I learned what I’m really writing about. I thought I was writing about old age, but I’m not. I learned this when I began to look back at my writing on Medium and Substack over the past six years, with the help of a friend who could take an objective view of my writing and tell me the truth.

Here’s what I learned.

• I am not really writing about aging.

• Aging is the setting.

• I’m writing about how our reality differs from our ideas about reality.

• I’m writing about the tension between what society says aging means and what it actually feels like.

I’m writing about what old age feels like for me. There is nothing more important than knowing what aging feels like. How aging feels in the moment is the secret we’ve been looking for. It’s the fountain of youth.

It’s the main event.

If we know how we are feeling in the moment, we’ll have gate-crashed reality. We’ll have found the Holy Grail of aging. But wait, you might say, I already know how I feel about aging. I’m me. I’m living in my body.

You might say, I read an article in The Guardian about how old age really sucks and is just the portal to more pain and suffering. Or maybe you read an article by me about how old age can be the best time of your life.

Both articles are wrong.

The only truth about old age is your truth. The truth about your sore legs, knees, and hips. The truth about your fear. The truth about all the things you have to give up in old age. The pain, loneliness, simple joys, and friendships. Your spouse’s smile. The sunrise.

Reality — not your thoughts about it.

I am only talking about the forest here, not the thousands of individual trees we have to deal with in our lives. In my writing, I take a 35,000-foot view of old age.

For me, this is the most important thing to know about life. General semanticist Alfred Korzybski coined the term: “The map is not the territory.” I remember hearing this quote in a high school class, and it has stuck with me because of the simple way it captures the mistake that makes everything harder.

It is a purely mental mistake.

And when I studied Zen, it really sank in. That simple quote describes the mistake that almost everyone makes over and over in their lives. The map is not the territory. The menu is not the meal. My thoughts about myself are not me.

This is the fundamental thing I have learned in Zen: “My thoughts are not me.” And I write about this within the setting of old age.

So it’s nice to know my thoughts are not me, but how do I explore this simple truth? The answer is to have a good look at my thoughts. Just spend some time watching them without attaching to them. To sit quietly and observe my thoughts (there will be a ton of them). If I don’t engage them, they will go away, one by one.

Many psychologists and neuroscientists suggest that a single conscious thought typically occupies the mind for around 5 to 10 seconds before attention naturally shifts if you don’t engage. If you engage, it could stay with you for hours — or years.

It is possible to live our entire lives through our thoughts instead of what’s actually going on. Maybe that’s what mentally ill people do, but sane people do it too.

Old age is a wonderful time to make this discovery of a lifetime — I am not my thoughts. But we can’t just sit down one day and decide, I am not my thoughts. It takes time. Simply knowing it is the first step. Then, reading Buddhist sutras, Zen parables, and philosophy will give you some good examples of the idea.

Spending quiet time in nature is illuminating when you do it with “I am not my thoughts” in mind. If you are older, you probably have time to sit quietly, doing nothing.

Over weeks, months, and years, I have gradually learned to take my thoughts a lot less seriously. With meditation, this life lesson slowly sinks in.

Of course, there are many other things to learn about old age: illnesses, exercise, diet, and health strategies for longevity. I seldom write about these things—one, because I am not an expert in those areas— and two, I only write about what I know: mindfulness, meditation, and, of course, being old.

So if you are older and depressed or have an illness, please see a professional about it. I am not a doctor. And there is endless information online about diet and exercise for us seniors.

My writings are always steeped in Zen Buddhism, Taoism, and philosophy — but always remember those are all just thoughts, too. A Zen story is not reality. A Zen teacher would call it a finger pointing at the moon, and would warn you not to get fascinated by the finger and miss the moon.

Gary
July 1 2026.