Overthinking the Room

"Do you have a soul mate? Somebody who challenges you? You'll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you're afraid to take the first step, because all you see is every negative thing 10 miles down the road."

-Sean Maguire, Good Will Hunting

Do you ever have those moments when you're absolutely convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that the simplest answer to a problem cannot be the right one and you will spend however long it takes to figure out what the more complex solution is, even if it's totally wrong?

That's what's been going on in my head for years.

Occam's Razor supposes that in deducing the truth, with all factors being equal, the simplest answer is the correct one. And yet, it's often the last thing we can accept as being the truth because life never seems that simple.

I have no idea when I started overthinking situations.  Were I to guess, I would likely start overthinking that too. Let's just say at some point along the way, the basic premise of A + B = C just didn't add up for me. Nothing could be that straightforward anymore. Not in a world of ever increasing complexity and not when it came to people who put every ounce of energy into matching that complexity.

What replaced the basic arithmetic of cause/effect, problem/solution was something akin to an algebraic equation that more closely resembles something like this:

X = ±∛(∞)

Why? Because nothing can possibly be resolved in a simple answer. There has to be some underlying angle I'm missing. Some key element of the puzzle that I'm too blind or too dumb to recognize, but unless I figure it out, then I obviously am incapable of finding the actual solution.

It also becomes easy to overthink things when you're sure you know how the world works in the first place. When you assume you have it all figured out and something or someone comes along who doesn't fit into the confines of your existence. And you can't work under the simple premise that it can be that easy or that those moments or people can make your life exponentially different, because there's got to be a catch. There always has to be a catch and if it's not with them, it's with you, which means you have to devote however much time as possible to figuring it out before it jumps out and bites you in the ass, thereby ruining everything that might be possible.

I overthink because it keeps me from letting my guard down long enough to risk getting hurt. By trying to predetermine what the outcome will be before it actually arises, considering all the variables and what I think I understand of how the world works, the outcome must invariably be what I determine it is, rather than what is actually possible if I just let things be what they are without pretenses, assumptions or forgone conclusions.

But we are far too multifaceted to be confined to mere equations which determine a singular, defining answer, and math never really was my strong suit.