loopinfinite

There’s all this delicate metaphorical machinery in my brain, a lot of complex equipment that apparently does something. What that something might be, I don’t really understand.

All I know is that the machines must work. They’ve got to be calibrated. If just one of them isn’t, then the collective system my thought processes comprise malfunctions in a way that’s noticeable but not easily fixable: I might know something’s wrong but I won’t know what or why.

Breakdowns are always happening, some on a large scale, some on a small one. I might be sitting somewhere trying to read some notes. I might even be getting stuff done. When some tiny factor changes, though, that’s it. My concentration shatters. The brief period of productivity ends; a lengthy period of confusion takes its place.

I tend to put off doing laundry until it becomes absolutely necessary. This happens every three weeks or so. The moment of recognition typically comes when one morning I wake up, go through the typical ritual of rooting around in the laundry basket for a clean pair of underwear in amongst the countless socks and wrinkled t-shirts, and find one but only after like five solid minutes of searching.

With a sinking heart I then realize this is the last pair of clean underwear. There is no more clean underwear here. There is no more clean underwear anywhere. And the thing is, I can wear dirty socks, if need be. I don’t give a shit. And I can handle an unwashed t-shirt. Underwear, though? Even I have my limits.

By the time I’ve run out of underwear, of course, the sheer mass of dirty clothing – both the underwear and everything else that could stand to be cleaner – is staggering and absurd. Doing my laundry therefore becomes a drawn-out day-long process of dread alternating with boredom. And it’s some serious bullshit.

I wish I could just sit down and type, without even pausing until I’m done with whatever it is I’m trying to write.

I gather that’s the way inspiration is supposed to work.

When an idea comes to you, it’s supposed to grab you by the hand and pull you, hard, in a specific direction, and if you want to keep up with it you need to run.

Follow that idea and if you’re lucky it takes you somewhere crazy, to a place like nowhere you’ve ever been. And you can relax once you’re there. You can do what you need to do. Your words are guaranteed to come slick and easy.

I can’t get any of this to happen. Ideas show up, drag me along for a few feet, then vanish. I may get flashes of insight; they short out before they can illuminate a goddamn thing. I can’t count on inspiration.

Without it, I have to consciously think. That’s hard. My brain is a garden choked with thick, sick vines. My thoughts are bees. My neurons are flowers. My thoughts/bees have trouble flying between my neurons/flowers. It’s a pain in the ass with all this thick overgrowth in the way.

And so everything that comes out of me feels wrong, the stilted product of violent and belabored thrashing. My brain is an engine that doesn’t even work. Everything I write consists of deformed and broken semi-ideas I had to superglue together.

I could be a fraud. I might not have the mental fortitude to ever write anything that isn’t bullshit. There may be a cold, hard truth here I need to face: I just might not be very good at this.

Let tomorrow come. I don’t give a fuck.

I have a plan. (It might even work.) Tomorrow morning, what I want to do is wake up when the alarm rings and then immediately sit up in bed. This action will have important symbolic value, because at that point I will have crossed the point of no fucking return: once I sit up, there will be no lying back down.

Then I will disable my Wi-Fi card. I’ll disconnect my router, too, and unplug my modem. Then I’ll go about my day with no Internet to distract me. That’s the plan. (It might not even work.)