define "think"

yesterday in spanish class we were told to "write what we think." Now, without any further instructions, i would have written down everything that has ever passed through my head. But because he didnt stop there, i had to write what i thought about things were written on the board. during those 5 seconds before explaination, millions of thoughts went throgh my head, none of which i wrote down and many of which i cant even remeber. thats usually how our lives go. infinate numbers of words bounce off our skulls a day, and most arent written down nor remembered. trying to explain "thinking" to someone would probably end up spinning you in circles. its the most automatic thing our bodies will ever do, because when something "takes our breathe away," its usually due to thoughts alone. to me, the word think has two similar meanings. one is to believe. i think she left. (i believe she left.) and the other one is to disect with the mind. i will think about it. ( i will have my mind disect it.) things become a fact to us after our senses work together to give us a conjoined thought, which we then compare to other previous thoughts until we come upon a truth. once we find out that truth, it is stored in our minds to be refered to next time we come to a conflict in that subject. sometimes those storage boxes burst open and out of "no where" we start thinkning about something completely irrelevant. now once that is centered in our heads, it opens every box having to do with it, then we have dug deeper and deeper into our pasts, and things we never put together before have now become linked. but sometimes we think about things deeper because we want to, not just because of some freak accident of the mind. this idea of "exploring the mind" is nothing new. many inventors, geniuses and mathmaticians have existed solely to explore whatever the human mind would offer, and by analyzing every last syllable, we create knowledge, which is then spread throughout the world. from day one of our lives, we have been encouraged over and over to THINK! when you dont know the answer to a question, you will most likely hear the word THINK thrown at you as if that one vague word would somehow give you the answer. also we have been taught to just think, no matter who or what you think about just THINK. and like Thoreau says in Walden, "Be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you,opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought." now things like this have never affected how much or how often i think. but they have a huge impact of what i think about. this doesnt tell me to think about the nature in my yard, or the fur of a rabbit, or how many times a day i laugh or cry. yet, when i hear words put like this, i cant help but sort my thoughts into piles named meaningless and needed. i've made myself believe that if i shut off everything that doesnt matter, i'll be able to see more clearly what does matter. but my thoughts are limited to my knowledge, i will never be able to be sure that what im shutting off is completely useless. my truths and beliefs are formed by what i have collected over 13 years with the help of five trusted, yet sometimes misleading, senses. to believe in what we've thought takes faith. to know that you may be missing some of the story, and that you may not have put it together right, BUT still believe in it, takes immense faith in the human mind, as well as the one who created it. empty storage boxes in our mind create doubt. when a thought arises but we dont have quite enough backup, our minds give us no reason to believe in what we've heard, so we deny the truth of it and we go on living like we were before. but that thought has started a new storage box that grows and grows until it explodes and it somehow seeps into everything else, flooding our heads, one . box . at . a . time . until its the one and only thought that soon dominates our brains. and that is when we must learn, do and simply see more, but not just to silence the overpowering thought, but to make sure that the mind is always running and never again stops at the foot of another.