For so long that was the important skill: the ability to jam seemingly impossible amounts of information into my brain in as little as time possible so there was a hope for sleep that night. From lectures to tests to studying: even the homework and essays were less about output than they were another tool to gather information on a previously murky view of the topic. Now it seems like I can go on and on putting things in my head (from suitably decent pursuits such as further study or reading, to the more time sucking and guilt-inducing unnecessary binges on Facebook, tumblr, movies, etc.) but I can hardly let my consciousness wander for more than a few spans of time before becoming bored, drowsy, or completely empty. And that’s terrifying: the fact that sometimes when I look inside myself for some idea to spring from, even some chasm to try and build a bridge over, I’m assaulted by nothingness. I’m pressed flat, two-dimensionally, until I can’t even be bothered to care and I begin some mundane task to obligingly fill the time. The “skill” of input has been so carefully developed over this lifetime; does that mean it will take me another lifetime to un-learn it? How long again after that until I can be not just three-dimensional and whole, but press forward and break that fourth wall? What have we come to that sometimes I couldn’t care less about originality or creativity and would not only settle but be elated by any sort of production at all?
senseless scribbles
Friday, January 31, 2014
It’s taken too long. Everyone thinks that when it’s over you can just move on with your life. Pick up the pieces and continue where you left off. But we started the race halfway through and already behind. It was never a matter of “Can I finish first?” It was a question of “Can I finish at all?” Because, though removed from the immediate atmosphere and no longer beholden to its tasks, we are still trapped making laps around the same track. We were in the trenches too long and we wore down the path so thoroughly with the catatonic motion of our trudging that we are bound in its perpetual cycle. The constant addiction, the compulsion to consume during the entirety of our waking eats away at us in return. Whatever the medium from which it originated, full of good intentions of high retention, it has stymied the tide of outward production. Not completely, for there are some able to retain or retrain the wandering of their minds. Yet it is plain to see that the automatic and conditioned response is to consume information.
For so long that was the important skill: the ability to jam seemingly impossible amounts of information into my brain in as little as time possible so there was a hope for sleep that night. From lectures to tests to studying: even the homework and essays were less about output than they were another tool to gather information on a previously murky view of the topic. Now it seems like I can go on and on putting things in my head (from suitably decent pursuits such as further study or reading, to the more time sucking and guilt-inducing unnecessary binges on Facebook, tumblr, movies, etc.) but I can hardly let my consciousness wander for more than a few spans of time before becoming bored, drowsy, or completely empty. And that’s terrifying: the fact that sometimes when I look inside myself for some idea to spring from, even some chasm to try and build a bridge over, I’m assaulted by nothingness. I’m pressed flat, two-dimensionally, until I can’t even be bothered to care and I begin some mundane task to obligingly fill the time. The “skill” of input has been so carefully developed over this lifetime; does that mean it will take me another lifetime to un-learn it? How long again after that until I can be not just three-dimensional and whole, but press forward and break that fourth wall? What have we come to that sometimes I couldn’t care less about originality or creativity and would not only settle but be elated by any sort of production at all?
For so long that was the important skill: the ability to jam seemingly impossible amounts of information into my brain in as little as time possible so there was a hope for sleep that night. From lectures to tests to studying: even the homework and essays were less about output than they were another tool to gather information on a previously murky view of the topic. Now it seems like I can go on and on putting things in my head (from suitably decent pursuits such as further study or reading, to the more time sucking and guilt-inducing unnecessary binges on Facebook, tumblr, movies, etc.) but I can hardly let my consciousness wander for more than a few spans of time before becoming bored, drowsy, or completely empty. And that’s terrifying: the fact that sometimes when I look inside myself for some idea to spring from, even some chasm to try and build a bridge over, I’m assaulted by nothingness. I’m pressed flat, two-dimensionally, until I can’t even be bothered to care and I begin some mundane task to obligingly fill the time. The “skill” of input has been so carefully developed over this lifetime; does that mean it will take me another lifetime to un-learn it? How long again after that until I can be not just three-dimensional and whole, but press forward and break that fourth wall? What have we come to that sometimes I couldn’t care less about originality or creativity and would not only settle but be elated by any sort of production at all?
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1 comments:
" the fact that sometimes when I look inside myself for some idea to spring from, even some chasm to try and build a bridge over, I’m assaulted by nothingness"
This.
And it's so easy to be crushed by it.
Although I will admit, a lot of the time when I experience this, I'm either not actually looking for anything or am not being specific. It's like staring at the home screen for google and expecting results to pop up without any search term filled in. Come on google, read my mind since I don't actually know what I want, just /something/. But since you can't expect something to come from nothing, and even though it feels stupid to throw something completely contrary that you don't even care about out at first, to "search for", it'll start the flow of substance if nothing else. I'm finding that the more often that I force the issue, the fewer times my figurative train of thought is getting stalled at the station.
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