What Buddhists say
Buddhists sometimes say something like: “Don’t pay too much attention to your thoughts – they come and go.”
This is why you should never listen to Buddhists.
What really matters is which thoughts keep coming back. If you pay close attention, that is not without reason.
It is also important to learn to fight some of your thoughts. Almost literally. I mark them and attack them within myself. It’s a matter of principle.
What is the value of a brain, then? Nothing. It is literally worth nothing without its connection to other things.
A brain is relevant because it resides in a body. And that body is in contact with its surroundings. A brain without relationships has zero value.
The value of a brain therefore depends on the (healthy) relationships it has. You cannot simply say: a brain is ill.
A brain is only ill in relation to something else:
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Depression: an unhealthy relationship with meaning, with other people
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Anorexia: an unhealthy relationship with emotions and with food
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Psychosis: not standing up for yourself for a long time and neglecting self-care
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Dementia: no longer knowing what your relationship with someone is
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Anxiety: not admitting that you are afraid, struggling to handle tension, being made afraid too often
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PTSD: an unhealthy relationship with the processing of the past
You also cannot say: we are our brain. It’s the other way around. The brain is important because we are everything.
Our brain is us
We humans often have the tendency to want to live in the here and now. That’s nice and easy—you don’t have to think about the past.
But the here and now is not all there is. We literally carry the past with us, in our memories.