Stewing

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Does anyone else have a tendency to stew about minutia? If so, could you tell me how to quit?

That's actually a trait that can come in handy. To wit:

1. Creating the perfect dish requires a comprehensive understanding of the fine details of butchering meat, setting a table, applying garnishes, matching wine to meals, etc. That's a gift, really.

2. Fixing a car can rely not only on sight and sound but understanding computer codes. There are fix it men and FIX IT men.

3. Scientists can never overlook the details needed to complete an experiment or creating a chemical compound to its exacting conclusion.

4. A record producer has to have the whole production visible before him, from the intro to the volume of the high hats, to the depth of the kick drum to length of chorus, etc.

5. Writers could never give too much details of what a scene looks like or how their characters look. That fine art of details is what separates the men from the boys.

Embrace the gift of minutia.

When I stew, it is usually about what a character in a fictional work did and why. Sometimes, I repeat descriptions about the action in my head so much, I forget what the description words mean. When I am done, I keep my thoughts to myself, because I feel that no one else would care about what I think. I will then forget about my ponderings, and neither record them nor feel the need to search for a moral from my thoughts. I am terrible at writing, and since I almost never stew about anything PRACTICAL, don't put off stewing for a time when I'm not doing something important, and usually spend too much time stewing, I can only see it as a problem. I want to know what other people do when they feel the need to stew under circumstances when they know for certain that the stewing can only bring short-term personal ephemeral gain which would not make up for the loss of not dealing with a more important task.

You describe me almost to a T except it is not about fictional characters. One good example is It might be about why someone said something to me or why someone reacted to me a certain way. It is usually about something that has very little or no effect on my life or well being, save only for the fact that began to stew over it.

And I don't think that it brings any gain, just negative feelings.

I still do think that any of these kinds of tendencies can be a gift if we can find a way to redirect our energies. It would be the same basic drive and tendency but re-applied to something useful. Note, I don't know how to do this. When part of the problem is that I stew over only certain kind of things, by definition it is not easily going to be "redirected". But I hold on to the hope that I can find a way.

I tend to do the same thing when I have interactions with people and try to do a review of things (particularly if I have some built up anxiety around how the interaction went) so that I can handle the situation differently if/when they come up again or if I run into the person again. It can be productive at times, but sometimes I get stressed about it.