No, we cannot stop thinking. Yes, we can stop identifying ourselves with our thoughts. The process of dis-identification begins when we check ourselves for gullibility, when we stop believing every thought we think.
There’s a commonly held belief that we’re merely bodies. What an extraordinary diminishment!
They say we come into the world with nothing. This overlooks the fact that we come with a body. Thereafter emerges a belief that we are the body. Here’s where the trouble starts.
We do not easily surrender our identifications. In hockey circles, they say that a professional player dies twice—once when he can’t play the sport anymore and again when he’s boxed and buried.
Fatherhood is a role. Employee, Lover and Victim are roles. Actors demonstrate right relationship to roles. Sir Laurence Olivier never confused himself with King Lear. Off the boards, he was immediately Larry. This was another role, a starring turn in a little drama called “The Story of Me.” Roles don’t matter, only the degree to which we identify with them. What we identify with, we suffer from.
Men's Work 