The curse of thought

Being a lover of philosophy, I find that I love to think (and being unemployed, I find that I have the time to do it). But, one should beware of the lethargic effects of contemplation and thought. Some thoughts that people have had on this topic:

"Self-contemplation is a curse
That makes an old confusion worse."
-Theodore Roethke

"How can you know yourself? Never by thinking, always by doing. Try to do your duty, and you'll know right away what you amount to. And what is your duty? Whatever the day calls for." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Hunger is the foremost illness;
Sankharas* the foremost suffering.
For one who knows this as it really is,
Nirvana is the foremost happiness."
- The Dhammapada, verse 203, Ch 15, Trans. by Gil Fronsdal
* "Sankharas refers either to all compounded, fabricated things or, more specifically, to the mental world of dispositions, intentions, memories, and thought." - Gil Fronsdal, pg. 129 "The Dhammapada".

People of the slower, more thoughtful ilk find themselves contemplating ideas, thinking about their character, thinking about fate, and a million other subjects offered up by the world. But these contemplations give rise to confusions, sadness, and a lethargy of spirit oh so easily. There comes a point at which thought becomes too encompassing, and we find ourselves sliding into the make-believe world of ideas, a slide which happens so easily that one doesn't know it is happening at all. Thoughts and ideas are wonderful blessings, but all wonderful things in this world have a dark side as well, at least in my view of the world. In any case I find the curse of thought brings both great and terrible things, to be dramatic about it. On the more practical and less dramatic side - stop reading this silly blog (which is all just a bunch of bologna anyway) and get moving along. Maybe I'll even take my own advice and get moving along towards a job.