What are you thinking about? Nothing.

Riding along in the car on the way to the train, going to work, my lovely wife is driving me and then she notices I am intently doing, "something in thought." Suddenly she says, "You are deep in thought, what are you thinking about?" and I respond, like I believe most men do, "Nothing."

Caveat: I am going to quote some folks here in this post and I do this simply because they said it so well there is not way I can improve on it. I normally give the name of the person quoted but today because of the subject matter will leave that off for privacy sake.

Needless to say my response elicits a bit of disbelief and anger from my wife because she says, "Impossible, all the books I read say we all constantly talk to ourselves in our minds and the chatter can not be stopped." I, of course, disagree.

Someone wrote the following and it rang the bell for me, "Mostly, I do not really think about anything. My natural resting state seems to be an inflow of what I see and hear and smell all around me and letting it flow through and leave. I rarely think in word and so I usually answer, Nothing!"

Now comes the question as to how this is possible. I have a theory and will express it but want to stress this is all mine and mine alone so take it with a grain of salt.

I have endeavored to find the answers as to why I do things and in conjunction try to figure out why women do things and thus get the response they get from the men.

Nature, that evil woman who decided to program males and females for survival. Yes, it deals with survival and those functions, instincts, etc. that both sexes are pre-programmed for that allow us to do what we are supposed to do to survive. Although technology and the industrial revolution have far outpaced both our humanity and mother natures natural evolutionary mandate (which, by the way we have absolutely not control over). We have arrived at a time where our natural tendencies want to do what they are programmed to do but our lives and environment no longer need to the extent originally intended.

Men are hunters/warriors, we are external creatures, we don't have those types of functions that women do, we don't talk about feelings and such, we talk about the hunt or the times we protected the group, etc. We are Yang, we are external, we tend to track and lock on to many things using our instincts to say "safe" or "danger" and then devise ways to protect the group. We also use these tracking functions to "hunt" our sustenance.

Women are gatherers and the threads that bind the group keeping it safe. They are communicators so the group remains connected and they communicate all the history and processes the tribe or group use to stay safe and provide for all food, shelter, and protection. If they did not communicate between each other then the group would not be a group but a bunch of individuals constantly colliding with one another creating discord.

The men are "out" hunting and when not hunting providing guard duty against the wild world protecting so they don't spend time inward and talking because that inattention leaves open vulnerabilities where the wild can get in and damage the tribe/group, etc.

Because women are communicators they take the responsibility of training and teaching the young. When boys and girls reach a certain point they branch off so the boys learn to hunt and protect from the men by watching and mimicking/practicing/learning by doing while the women through both actions and communications teach the girls their function to support the tribe/group.

So, when they ask what are we thinking we are not necessarily thinking thought and words but our minds are tracking through our senses and we are taking it in, determining the threat potential or the food/sustenance potential, and letting it either go to memory for later use/retrieval and then moving on to the next thing we see, hear, and smell around us.

Before you say it, yes, in today's world this might seem sexist or not politically correct but think about it, when you are riding the train to work as I do take a look around you. You will most likely see women in groups talking, men sitting and quietly/seemingly contemplating deep thought (in reality we are not, at least I will admit I don't except when studying I Ching or contemplating training/practice, etc.).

I have in my seeing,hearing, and smelling observed cars whizzing by with men focused on driving and nodding occasionally while the women sitting next to them are talking what seems to us guys, me anyway, as constant chatter. Simply, I don't get it (notice I didn't say we don't get it ;-). But, now maybe I do understand. I accept it and try hard to communicate back as needed but it is not natural for me as I want to see, hear, smell and in the end evaluate my environment for safety and survival.

If we were not so far ahead of mother nature's evolutionary ability maybe the hunter/warrior/gatherer would be less prominent in our DMA and maybe we would not be seeking things that end up in battles and wars and conflicts and other such things. Maybe in time mother nature will allow normal evolution to change us all so we are closer in balance to the center and not the distant Yang to Yin (for those who are not versed in Chinese classics think, men are from mars and women are from venus).

There is a purpose to this madness. Maybe knowing our true nature will allow us to accept each other as we are with understanding and thus live in greater peace and tranquility. You as men don't have to go out and join a dojo and learn all the warrior stuff but just accept we have those tendencies and seek out other ways to express it with out all the fear, anger, and physically expressions of aggression (aggression = testosterone).