Second thoughts and their purpose

It was a fresh, sunny day as I was sitting near a body of water.

There was a flower somewhere in front of me, but only after my first thought did I truly see the flower.

And then he appeared—my first thought.

Slowly, with a yawning calm, he broke through the surface of the still water and crawled ashore. He seemed to move in slow motion; even the water dripping from him fell far more slowly than it should have.

The thought did not look at me. With his sluggish pace, he moved purposefully toward the flower.

When he finally reached it, he sat down and looked at it.

I watched the thought patiently— as patiently, as one can watch one’s first thought—but when nothing happened for a long time, I began to feel bored by the still scene and I stepped closer.

It was a beautiful flower. I could describe it to you, but words alone will never capture the true essence of a thing.

You will therefore have to believe me when I tell you that this flower, which I saw during my first thought, was the most beautiful flower that has ever existed and ever will.

My paws—until then autonomous limbs of a non-autonomous organism—moved quite naturally toward the flower to pick it.

Then came the second thought.

The second thought was much faster than the first, and it did not come from the water. It struck like lightning and came out of nowhere. It stopped me.

Now this thought stood between the flower and me. In that first moment, I would have liked to ask it to please step aside and clear the way. I would have liked to ask it what the problem was.

But thoughts cannot be controlled, and unfortunately, you cannot talk to them either. Perhaps they perceive you, but you are simply irrelevant to them. Thoughts do what they want, and they visit and leave us as they please.

Back then, I did not understand it, but today I am glad that there was this second thought that kept me from picking the beautiful flower.

I hope someone else saw it too.