Know that I am thinking of you

Can you tell if you know whenever someone is thinking of you? If you do then it is simple telepathy or some connection which makes you think of the person thinking about you. If you mean that you don't know what you are thinking, you are not thinking at all. Another thing would be the inability to analyze your thoughts, which would be, pardon me, a major discomfort for the rest of your life. More comprehensible is that you mean you are unable to ascertain what your mind’s intentions are.

Now this is as if I don't know a better adjective than beautiful mechanism that our minds have, to cope with stress. Sometimes, when faced by challenges like decision making, extreme situations, impending losses, bad relationships etc, our minds try to insulate themselves from the excessive strain and channelize our focus, causing very different thought processes.

And this becomes serious when, out of confusion and depression, the mind goes into destructive lines. Most crimes, against others as well as self, take place. But, thinking as we express it, is not a simple process. You must have noticed that when you are deep in thought, it happens that we end up somewhere very far from the issue. Like Google, mind throws up related memories or issues as raw materials to continue thinking, and we get caught up. This also happens when we are going to sleep. You think of so many unrelated things.

Basically self awareness is the key. If a person does not analyze his own mind, it is a real waste of life. I know people will argue otherwise, but unless you know yourself, you will remain in the outer world where, mind you, you cannot find peace. Therefore, the solution would be to sit for twenty minutes or so daily, and try to remain thoughtless. You will see how difficult it is. Once you have given up, let the thoughts come, but don't indulge in them, observe them, as if you are standing next to a huge colourless lake, and every thought is developing like concentric waves, as the ones that would generate if you threw a pebble into the lake.

And if you really want to do this, you have to minimize worldly interactions and media, at least for sometime. Get closer to the self, because it is the only thing that is yours, after all. When what you were thinking rises into consciousness in the form of language, then and only then do you ‘know’ what you are thinking, prior to that, the process of forming a notion is inarticulateness, it is implicit, subconscious and not yet ready to be formulated into words.

However, much of it is dispositional and the product of mental habits formed over a lifetime and expresses, in various ways, but most generally in reference to your character, the kind of personality you have become over time. You have a ‘way’ of being and articulating your thoughts and these are an expression of your character. People who know you well expect that you will inevitably express yourself in this consistent manner, that is how they ‘know’ you and how you ‘know’ others.

While you may express thoughts in language in innumerable ways (sentences, phrases, etc), there is a pattern that marks you as the person and character you have become and will remain over your lifetime. But "think of you" indicates to me a thought the contents of which are "you". There is no implication of reasoning, logic, or any kind of train or analysis, just, there's a picture in my head, and you're in it.

And "think about you" has a few more implications of active, conscious thought, a train of thought leading through some series of conclusions. It does not necessitate analysis, the two phrases are often inter-changeable, but there's an aftertaste of it when using "think about" rather than "think about". It means something more particular. You could quantify the difference by saying that "of" implies a train of thought that led to "you", whereas "about" implies that the train of thought revolves around "you".

"If I could find a souvenir

just to prove the world was here

and here it is, a red balloon

I think of you, and let it go"

Here my intuition is that, if the poet said "I think about you" it would be inappropriate here, not only because it would ruin the meter, but because it's very clear that the speaker is thinking about the red balloons, and in the process of thinking about the balloons, they think of you. To think about someone refers to that person in his circumstance, those things that impinge upon his reality and which may affect his behavior. There is more materiality in thinking about someone. There is more of a spiritual quality to thinking of a person. Cheers!