From one view, the only thing we have to think about is not worth thinking about;
the one thing most accessible for men to study about themselves is what they think (the body being excluded in that while it is beneficial to scrutinize same when ill, the best that can result therefrom is a return to health --  not super health, which is the sole interest herein),
and all men (if asked) believe that they do think about and examine their thinking --
but they are in total error;
ordinary men with ordinary brains do not think about what they think,
even when they think they do –
they think about how they feel, and the conscious part of the brain speciously translates this into neural data it then treats as being about thinking.
 

The normal operations of the brain cannot think about what it thinks,
and for a reason man’s collective mind is not wired to grasp:

(which under one guise or the other is always the attempted study of its own conscious operations).

The certain man with that non standard ability and interest can,
from the adequate study of what occurs in his own consciousness
(and the overt expressions of all others)
realize quite unambiguously that all of the thoughts which appear in the brain
(excluding those concerning the physical reality outside a man’s mind)
have no intellectual base;
they entirely arise-from, and are naught but reflections-of  --  what a man is feeling;
no thought that any man ever has about his inner life --
be it called spiritual, psychological, or what it is, mental --
is a not thought about thinking  --   it is about feeling,
but the thought can certainly defend and define itself to the contrary;
a man and his familiar mind can forcibly insist that that they do regularly,
think-about what they think:
that they reflect on and reexamine their thoughts about: political philosophy;
life after death; morality; self-esteem, etc,
but this is a majority enjoyed illusion (which of course renders it no illusion at all,
                                                                            but rather, man’s collectively perceived reality).
 

Thoughts about all things intangible (man’s inner-only reality) literally have no foundation; no basis; no distinct, individual substance;
all that is needed for the certain man to see it is going on in his thinking constantly;
all thoughts which the brain did not create to represent some aspect of the
physical world outside of itself have as their sole source --
the way the organism housing that brain is feeling internally;
these non essential, day-dream type thoughts are not inspired by
some feature of physical reality (exemplified for instance by physics,chemistry,
and mathematics to symbolically abstract them) –
such thoughts are fathered by how the thinker is feeling --  and nothing else,
but  beyond this appetizer  --   the crud de la crud
(the verbally humorous view from the certain man’s allegorical stomach) --
is the fact that the brain is not ordinarily capable of realizing and/or accepting that
all of its self-defined: deeply intellectual, spiritual, psychological,
even, metaphysical thoughts have nothing behind them  --  nothing to support them,
and nothing other causing them, other than:
how the man, at the moment, is physically, thus, emotionally  --  feeling.
 

When ordinary men, regardless of their I.Q., education, or sincerity,
say that they think-about what they think about  --   their brain is (for whatever reason
life has [demonstrative likelihoods having several times been noted here in past stories])

This is what (under cover) has spawned all of man’s various mental entertainments
from mythology, to fiction, to religion and psychology,
each an example of the mundane brain trying to explain what it thinks
based on recollections of feelings it has past had  --  and right there!  --
the brain is at the point where, if it could move differently --
it could see what it is trapped in.
It will (for instance) offer the reason that the man in which it is lodged has
negative thoughts toward others is because of the harsh treatment he received
as a child  --  a story whose veracity is irrelevant  --
but such is part of mankind’s common mental/verbal currency,
yet no one realizes what the brain is actually saying and doing:
it ostensibly tries to uncover, then expose and explain the reasons –
--  intellectually solid reasons for what it thinks --  using inevitably,
emotional experiences (caused either by family, the gods, or society)
without ever taking the one small, next step of recognizing that
the thoughts it says it is trying to analyze,
on the basis of how they have been affected by feelings,
are nothing BUT expressions of feelings  --  in disguise.

Feelings cannot talk  --  feelings act;
lacking consciousness, and the resultant talking-thought,
a tiger not momentarily feeling so hot will take an instinctive swipe at
anything getting too close or bothering it;
under similar conditions, a civilized, properly intellectualized human will,
in lieu of a punch  --  have a thought about the instant situation,
and perhaps vocally express same (such as): “Leave me the hell alone!” –
then being the sophisticated, reflective being that he be –
his brain will likely later try to analyze:
 “Why did I speak so harshly to that person?…
      why do I have such aggressive thoughts about people? ….
          did he remind me of my father and my painful childhood?” --
all of this taking place in all ordinary humans all over the world all of the time,
(but which overlooks salient inner reality as did titanic, ice cubes showing up in the martinis).
In this perfectly common, unrelenting mental activity do men’s brains speak and think as though they are examining and thinking about they think about,
when what it is doing is watching smoke that has no fire of its own,
and then inventing stories of fire in an effort to explain the bastard, spurious smoke --  in spite of the north-atlantic-sized-fact that real fire does exist,
and it was this fire --   too hot for the brain to presently handle directly --
that it has labeled:
what-I-think-about-when-I-am-not-forced-by-physical-circumstances-to-be-serious-
and-am-thinking-about-myself-
while-disguising-the-fact-by-claiming-that-I-am-thinking-about-
some-other-something-or-other-which-I-also-cannot-get-my-hands-on,
(which is to say): non technical thought.
 
 

                                                      Regarding Smell: