A pilot reads instruments. Calculates fuel. Cross-checks the navigation. Thought is doing exactly what thought does well — applying memory to a specific technical problem with measurable outcomes. The plane lands. Nobody complains.
Now the same pilot, at home, can't sleep because he's trying to figure out whether he's a good father. Same brain. Same kind of thought. Different domain. The result is different.
K wasn't anti-thought. He was anti-thought-in-the-wrong-place. Thought is excellent at technical problems. Math. Navigation. Recipes. Code. Memory matters there. Calculation matters there. Categorization matters there. Thought is bad at psychological problems. Who am I. Am I good enough. What should I want. There, memory and calculation make the problem worse. Categorization invents the conflict.
The misuse is universal. The same skill that gets a plane on the ground is brought to bear on questions thought has no business answering. Then thought produces an endless analysis of the self, the relationship, the meaning of one's life. The analysis just builds more self, more relationship-as-image, more meaning-as-belief. The plane lands. The life doesn't.
Notice the body in the two modes. Thought-on-a-technical-problem feels neutral. Focused. The body is doing the work. Thought-on-a-psychological-problem feels heavy. The chest tightens. The shoulders rise. Sleep gets harder. The body knows the tool is wrong before the mind admits it.
Thought is a tool. Tools have a right scope. Outside its scope, thought makes everything worse and calls the worsening "doing the work." K's whole project was getting thought back into its actual job description.