Thinking about yourself in circles all night isn’t self-knowledge. It’s a hamster wheel with your face on it.

Rumination does a very good impression of insight. It has the same subject matter and the same serious tone, and it produces nothing, because the third lap is identical to the first. The test is simple: if nothing new has arrived in twenty minutes, you are not thinking, you are idling loudly.

When you notice the loop, do something that forces it out of your head. Write it on paper, say it to one person, or set it down until tomorrow on purpose. On paper it either becomes a question you can answer or reveals itself as four words you have been dressing up.