(No Title)

it was on a hungover sunday stroll when i realised that i had stopped thinking. i noticed the effort that was needed to project something into my head, to feign interest in it and develop it into something that could keep my attention. inevitably, everything slipped away. too much concentration was required.

this was back when i was at university. the requirement for thought had become sickly, now associated with the gradual alienation of myself from my peers. a memory dipped in a bitter ointment. i seemed to lack the will to go there, to engages whatever bits of brain that made me compute things. perhaps the incessant questioning of just about everything that i was once so intrigued by, so energised by, had taken its toll. perhaps i was unwilling to think, to value, judge or enjoy, because to consider it only slightly more would involve it fragmenting into some kind of paradox, and well i just don't have the time for that.

looking back now, i recall the need to juice myself up on coffee before engaging with my brain for some purpose, say, like reading, or writing an essay, or applying for a job, even responding to an email from a bygone friend. some kind of preparatory act was required, and this ended up being coffee. coffee signalled positive engagement with the task at hand. like clearing the house before a party, knowing the mess that the party would bring. but i couldn't be bothered to party any more, the clean-up beforehand wasn't worth the trouble.

the coffee became tasteless and unaffordable. it was left to me to do things, to find some criteria with which to value things, and to subsequently decide to do them. from whence this curse of inertia? i asked the small collection of ducks below me. why this relentless indifference? any clues? i tried to trick myself with emotional triggers, something to jump-start some form of emotion. a past romance; a late grandmother; rising energy prices; world poverty... what am i to make of these things?

and rounding the corner of a frosted park walkway, that hungover sunday, i caught myself with nothing fuzzing around in this mind of mine. no daydreaming about years past, no musings on the weekend ahead, no opinions on the books i was reading. just space. space doomed to be gradually comsumed with a fairly indifferent reflection on this very predicament. to a passing dog-walker i may look deep in thought, unreachable, lost in my own problems, dwelling on deep feelings, longing, wishing, hurting... not i. this preoccupied face holds no secrets.