Fascinating post. I would say that most folks thought are not their own and they generally don't think for themselves. I think its a bad trend but one thats been around since forever. I think one of the biggest hamstrings to society is having our thoughts lead, social engineering, and the inability to freethink, discern objectively and a society built these days nearly entirely on emotion.

As for what we learn being useful or not. I think there is a trite intellectualness to most of the world. Being up on sports stats and figures, memes, and low level popular trivia doesn't really help you understand the world on anything more than a superficial level.

I rabidly study and follow advanced aerospace. I know all sorts of seemingly useless facts about that subject. One could argue i too am guilty of my above complaint. I see it differently. The facts are a side effect of what im really doing. Studying the human forefront of science, physics, technology and engineering achievement. Via that i learn an in depth understanding of the underpinnings of the world around me. The substrate that make things what they are. The information i learn from studying what goes bump in the night and the intellectual process i go through to understand whats behind it sheds a light in the dark and helps me more deeply appreciate the world around me.

As for overthinking. Boy am i guilty of that. When analyzing a situation i almost always flesh out every possibility from great to horrific. I would then focus on the bad and drive myself insane with anxiety. It's something i just recently have learned to get under control and not steer my personality. Overthinking and the anxiety created from it was a contributing factor to losing the two most import things in my entire life. It was a very hard
lesson learned.