Consider the arrival of a new tenant to a basement apartment. He is a young man in his late twenties. He has a goatee and sideburns, because the year is 1998, and most young men of that time had those things on their face. He wears jeans and a t-shirt, has very few belongings, all of which fit in the bed of a rusted pickup he’s backed into the drive of an old home. He turns the key in the door and enters for the first time to scope out the place he will call home. It is possible our story begins here.

It is also possible it ends here. Had we been following the previous tenant, this might feel right, as an ending. Perhaps our concern should be with this other person. He too is a young man in his late twenties, his appearance so similar as to be the same, whose departure is its own beginning. So you see, these decisions of story are arbitrary, and fallible. Mistakes might be made, wrong choices, when we attempt to decide such things.

And the question is, where to go from here. Which young man should concern us? The one arriving, or the one departing? And if we choose incorrectly, what then? I say we, but clearly it is I who must do the choosing. I must decide for us. And you must trust me.

I choose the man arriving. We will begin there. It will be our point of entry to the story, but not necessarily the beginning. Though at some point we may find ourselves back where we began. Or starting over. It all has much to do with the house.

The house has been crouched over the basement for one hundred years. It has a long history, and this history is unknown to us. The history may matter a great deal, but we cannot know how it matters, only that it does. We cannot know all the souls who’ve lived in the home, only that they have. Meals have been prepared, meat cooked in ovens, sauces simmered on stoves, bottles of wine spilled, children conceived. Wallpaper has been chosen, installed, enjoyed, become tiresome, been removed. Terrible fights have occurred. Love has been shared. And the residue of it all lingers like smoke in the walls.

People have died within these walls, and some have lived, more or less. There was word of a suicide. These details are lost to us. We know only that they must influence anyone who enters. Some people are more sensitive to these things, some less. But the house has had experiences over time, and absorbed them, as all houses do. And these things come to bear. They matter.

They matter because the basement is no longer a basement. Where once it had concrete blocks for walls and bare earth for a floor, it now has a carpeted floor, finished walls painted a neutral shade to beckon new tenants. The house above has been cut into four separate dwellings. It is no longer a family home, but home to many, some for short periods of time. People come and go now more than ever before. The life of the house has accelerated, as the house itself has aged. The older it gets, the faster it spins. It might wish to hold its weary head.

So there is risk involved in choosing where to begin, you see. But we've chosen. Or rather I've chosen, and you must trust me. Let us begin.

In his book The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle suggests a little thought experiment. He says close your eyes and say to yourself I wonder what my next thought is going to be, then become very alert and wait for that thought. Be like a cat watching a mouse hole, waiting to see what thought is going to pop out.

The first time I tried this experiment, I made it about one pico-second before a thought arose. The second time, about the same. Over time I learned to just keep asking the question over and over. Each time a thought arose, to immediately ask myself what the next one would be. After a dozen or so attempts over a few days, I finally began to experience a few seconds of walking or sitting in peace with not a thought in my head.

Never too long, though, as I’m a most obsessively compulsive over-thinker. I torture myself with my own thoughts, self-criticism, anxiety over unpaid bills or social slip-ups. Saying the wrong thing and being unable to forgive myself. Or sometimes even saying the right thing and constantly replaying the audio in my head, relishing my moment of glory. Which is exactly why I was so interested in this experiment. I need help. And the more I tried to stop thinking, and actually started to succeed a little bit, the more I started to wonder where all these thoughts were coming from.

Most of us associate ourselves with our thoughts. That is, we don’t put any distance between ourselves and our thoughts. We often don’t just fail to see ourselves as the thinker of our thoughts, we completely confuse our identity with our thoughts.

But when you challenge yourself to still your mind, to recognize when it is racing out of control, you find yourself stepping out of the wind tunnel of thought, and you realize it can be quiet in your head. At least for a moment.

Then a thought will arise.

Where do they come from? Why do they come?

If you think about it, thought is a lot like breath. You can control your breath if you choose. You can take a deep breath, or a shallow one. You can hold your breath. But when you aren’t focused on your breath, when you’re not thinking about breathing, breathe arises on its own. You don’t have to do anything.

Thought is similar. You can focus your thoughts. You can choose to think about something. You can choose to not think about something, and fail. (Try now to not think of a hairless pink monkey). You can solve a problem, plan your day, choose to place your fingers on a keyboard and type some words. But when you aren’t focused on your thoughts, thought happens anyway. It just happens.

Why?

Where do these thoughts come from?

I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit. And here’s what I’m thinking. Are you ready for this? You’re not. But I’m going to say it anyway.

What if… just what if… what if thoughts are perceived?

See? I knew you weren’t ready. But bear with me. What if thought doesn’t come from the brain? I know that’s a crazy thing to say. But no one has ever sliced open a brain and removed a thought. Just like no one has ever sliced open a brain and removed a sound, or a feeling. Or a sight. You can damage an area of the brain, and this will impair its ability to perceive, or process what it perceives. But these perceptions are not coming from within the brain. They are processed by the brain. They do not arise in the brain.

The sound of a dog barking is perceived by the ears. The feeling of silk is perceived by touch. The sight of a cloud is a perception made possible by the eyes.

What if thought is another type of perception? It’s not as crazy as it sounds. You’ve had great ideas before and not known where they came from. They just came to you. Scientists have made some of their greatest discoveries in dreams. Musicians wake up in the middle of the night with a song in their head and grab a guitar to record it.

Now, whatever it is that’s out there generating those thoughts that are perceived is another question entirely. It’s probably some sort of universal consciousness. Or maybe a hairless pink monkey with a dipping stick, blowing invisible thought bubbles.