Why do you get hurt? Physically you can’t avoid getting hurt but why do we get hurt emotionally?
We have ‘inner standards’ as well as outer one’s that we try to live up to. When they are challenged there is a reaction. That reaction is conflict, fear, suffering, etc.
Don’t the inner standards come from the outer standards of a particular society that we live in?
Yes but the ones that are internalized we may not be aware of until they’re challenged. For example I don’t want to be shown to be wrong. I’m afraid to be psychologically naked…there is an image that ‘needs’ to be upheld…people kill each other over this.
The I feels for most of us as real as the body. Realer! If the body can get wounded, why not the I?
Of course, that’s why I’m always looking to become better, happier, stronger, more secure…ultimately invincible! I can’t imagine not wanting to become better than I am right now. That’s the ongoing tension. As opposed to K, I mind what happens!
Is it working? If you compare now-Dan with the Dan of 1 year ago, 5, 20, is the now-Dan better?
Yes but it can never be good enough. There is always someone to compare yourself to that is better. The desire will end with death unless it ends before…it’s based on the belief that there is ‘time’ psychologically.
The self, me, is time. As psychological thought is time. What is happening ‘now’ couldn’t happen in any other way.
The self is the ‘past’, it doesn’t exist in the now.
Maybe. Who knows? Maybe strong desires continue after the body-brain dies. In which case, if the goal is freedom, waiting until you die is not gonna work!
The psychological image of freedom is a mirage. It will always be just over the horizon!
Thought is the ‘jailer and the prisoner’ and also pretends to be the ‘rescuer ‘
And/or thought is doing its best with its strengths and weaknesses.
Poor psychological thought, gets such a bad rap here, I think it needs our affection!
Yes it also pities itself!..,…
Self love? 
The only ‘love’ it knows?
?
So one thing is clear. There is an image or a thought that gets hurt.
Now why do we give such importance to thought or imagery ?
Thought creates the thinker/observer/self. They are the ‘ones’ who give importance, get hurt, have pleasure, attach, accumulate, etc The ‘I’. The ‘me’. Also thought likes to say ‘we’ as if ‘we’ all exist.
We already know that the thinker is thought so why separate them? Thought gives importance to it’s creation which is the imagery. Why does thought sustain and give continuity to itself?
Because there’s nothing to stop it?
You are not answering the question. The question is what is the necessity for thought to continue? Maybe it is too deep of a question to ask in here.