Learning how not to think

[rootofnewt]

I can remember a time when I actually thought. Thinking was a hobby. Reading several news sources a day, letting the information tumble about in my head, running to the library or my reference shelf or a professor's office when I wanted more information or clarity on a topic . . . that used to be how I breathed and lived. In my free time, I would pick a random section of the university library and read several books. Those might spark an interest in 14th century court farces or Constructionist sculpture or the fashion of nihilist women in the Russian Classical age. I devoured knowlege and I sorted it into various niches, saving it for when I might suddenly find it relevant. And I often did dig it back up, finding relevance every single day. The tangled web of information, knowlege, and the wide expanses of *everything* consumed me.

It seems so foreign now. Almost all of my spare energy is given over toward coping with pain. I've tried writing as a means of coping--of dissociation--but the pain pushes through and takes over. I've tried to keep up on world events and new theories, on the intricacies of foreign policy, but there is precious little space left in my head for the organization rational thought requires.

I occasionally make myself read the world news only in Russian or French, desperately hoping to fire up some calcified synaptic connection. Sometimes I feel a spark, but I usually just find myself as frustrated with the news as when I read it in English. Something is there, but it's just beyond my grasp. And when I go to search for it, I suddenly forget just what it was.

Sometimes I return to math and physics, the language I spoke before people started to interest me. And I find that while I can understand single fragments of it just as well, I can't make the logical leaps that once made it so easy for me. It's like that in every subject now.

I can look at two theories and where I once saw arcs and tangents and a cloud of relational substance, I just see two distinct entities, alone in a void.

Pain hasn't just severed relationships, it's erased them.

That terrifies me.

Comments

[fallconsmate.livejournal.com]

it does hurt. it hurts that the beastling is now only 1/8 of an inch shorter than I am, too.

the *only* redeeming thing in this is how compassionate my son is now. he's still 12, he's still self-centered and unthinking at times, but his heart is *good*. he cares about others.

that brings me comfort.