The Paradox of Rumination

Rumination or worrying is a time future problem, we cannot know the future, but we can certainly worry about what it might look like based upon past experience, the decisions we took or didn’t take that now land us in a position where we wake in the middle of the night going over and over what we have or might have done, thinking about how we can redress this and create a different future personally, relationally and financially. Surely if we understand our mistakes well enough, if we can see where we went wrong, we may be able to protect ourselves from a worse future. But of course, we cannot know the future and the time spent in rumination merely locks us into an endless time present, where nothing changes and lifegiving and generative recursion stops.

While trapped in time present, as we endlessly unpack time past, we are denied the collective cognition available when difficulties are transacted outside rather than inside. A dialogue with someone else opens new possibilities, meanings and perspectives and allows us to see the situation from another vantage point. Without this our rumination becomes increasingly unintelligent and distressing as we breathe the recycled air of a closed room.