Metacognition in Marriage

       Just thinking about thinking is metacognition! Some thinking is just daydreaming. Some thinking is problem solving.  Some thinking is analyzing and some is planning. I am always thinking about something.   I ask a lot of questions not only to others but to myself and thus I think a lot. Not all of my thinking is one hundred per cent productive, but it is usually positive.  I try to keep my thinking from going in negative directions, because I do not want to be discouraged.  Even more importantly, I cannot afford to be discouraged.  Life is too short waste any time waddling in self-pity, negativity or discouragement.
        My husband is a thinker,too.He likes to think about big ideas such as societal injustices and things that he cannot change. I hate injustices,too; but I put them in God's hands and try to focus on the practical things that I can change. His line of thinking can be very discouraging to me.
         Our thinking patterns differ immensely.  His thinking is like a rhino and he thinks that mine more like the proverbial ostrich. He thinks about things in a forceful, passionate manner.  He finds a lot to be angry about and to be upset about.  I, on the other hand, get upset only when I am seeing him upset, rather than getting worked up over global matters.  He says that I am like an ostrich. He says I have my head in the sand. In defense of the ostrich, I will say that it does protect its mind.  I do guard my mind and my thinking, and, hopefully, I am not in Fantasy Land
        When he is sitting near me quietly, I often ask him what he is thinking about.  He usually says, "Nothing". I think to myself, how can anyone be thinking about "nothing"? I cannot imagine thinking about nothing or not thinking.   I read somewhere that men liked to have time in that cave, in that break from thought called "nothing".  It is perhaps like an electric heater or an iron that has been left on and turns itself off rather than getting overheated. They call it "automatic shut-off".  Maybe rather that marveling that he is thinking about "nothing", I should be thankful that he sometimes finds in me a safe, quiet, haven from the stresses of thinking about all those big ideas that I choose not to dwell on,but that he faces head on.
        Men have more compartmentalized thinking and women have a more integrated or connected thinking patterns.  Men can have a compartment in the brain for "Nothing", but most women cannot, because all of female thinking is connected in someway to each other. That is why when when my head is in the sand, it is not really there for avoidance.  It is there for protection; for observation of the sand itself; for thoughts about food, family, job, church, books, the Bible, the house, the car, the needs of others; and many other important ideas. I am thinking about all of those things while my head is buried. All the while, the courageous rhino is thinking about one realm or idea at a time, because that is the way he was made.