whatever whatever
I know I'm gonna change that tune
The other day I saw a bird that drifted so languidly through the air me that, for a moment, I truly believed it to be a fish. I thought, we’re really in it now. What I could have meant by that statement, I don’t know. As thoughts go it failed to rise to its imagined occasion. I blinked, a wing flapped, and the creature was a bird.
Everything’s a dead end. I read books but feel unable to say anything about them, I watch the first ten minutes of movies and then abandon them, I sit outside drinking my coffee and wait, I sit inside drinking my coffee and wait, but nothing comes together, it’s all just a haze. My drafts folder on here is littered with things that are three quarters done. One thing that just can’t get finished, that’s a problem with that thing; two, still the thing; but once we start reaching three or more stalled out pieces the problem shifts to me. I never saw the movie Village of the Damned, or for that matter, read the book The Midwich Cuckoos, but I’m aware that the climax involves a heroic schoolteacher keeping a group of evil psychic children from figuring out that they’re all about to die by envisioning a wall. Should the occasion arise, I could do a great job envisioning a wall, I think. I am all walls.
But at this point in my life, I also know these moments are cyclical, they will always come and they will always go, there are no epiphanies here to use to bring the moment to the close, there is just doing what you can and waiting it out. In lieu of a satisfying realization, therefore, I present, some lists.
Deeds I’ve done instead of finishing anything, not in chronological order:
Researched “millet seed pillows.”
Researched “buckwheat pillows.”
Bought an expensive-ish shampoo and conditioner.
Tried expensive-ish shampoo and conditioner.
Gave up on expensive-ish shampoo and conditioner.
Re-organized my playlists.
Read twenty books about which I have nothing to say (apparently).
Felt mad.
Felt sad.
Felt bad.
Wore plaid.
Deliberately sought out conversations about Taylor Swift that I knew would annoy me.
Purchased a “buckwheat pillow.”
Caught a mouse by scooping it up in a plastic cup.
Watched a very stupid video in which a retired mathematician in California claims that the math tells him that it’s rare for consciousness to be embodied, and that embodiment is bad because it involves a necessary delay between thought and deed, and it’s unclear to me if by non-embodied consciousness he means “computer,” and if he is aware computers are also operating at a delay.
Purchased one of those u-shaped French hair pins in order to learn at long last how to “put my hair up.”
Did not “put my hair up.”
Read more of Within a Budding Grove.
Thoughts I’ve thought instead of finishing anything, not in chronological order:
Okay, let’s say a buckwheat pillow improves sleep and neck pain. Then what am I supposed to do when I travel? Bring my own pillow? Like some kind of asshole? On the other hand, if it doesn’t work, I will just have a really hard and also expensive bag of seed husks, like some kind of idiot. I just don’t see this venture ending well for me.
Can I become an influencer for this one farm in upstate Michigan so that they give me free jars of cherry butter and I don’t have to pay for shipping whenever I order one? What would that entail?
Sometimes I think it would be cute to sell shirts and mugs with Boswell’s face on them but then the idea feels weird and in fact kind of violating and also I have this deep sense that somebody would go out and do some kind of crime in a Boswell T-shirt. And not a cool crime like art forgery.
Does my local librarian like me?
Does my local librarian think I’m kind of awkward?
Does my local librarian think I’m kind of stupid because I once got lost in the straight path between the door and the checkout desk?
Maybe I’m just a little ol’ country Kantian but I don’t understand how people find it easy to imagine non-physical forms of existence in the future. I do not find this easy to imagine. I think I find it… impossible…?
Resolutions I’ve resolved instead of finishing anything, probably in chronological order:
I will not buy any more books.
I will not buy any more books except for research.
I will not buy any more books except for research and pre-ordering books since that is after all just being a good literary citizen.
I will wake up every day at the same time.
I will wake up every day at the same time, which will be 7:00.
I will wake up every day at the same time, which will be 7:30.
I will wake up every day at the same time, which will be 7:45.
I will not look at my phone after 10:00 at night.
I will not look at my phone after 10:00 at night except to put on podcasts.
I will not look at my phone after 10:00 at night except to put on podcasts and do crosswords.
I will not buy any more books and I mean it this time.
I will not buy any more books and I mean it this time—except for research.
You sound depressed. You’re thinking about thinking.
The reason people find it easy to imagine non-physical forms of existence is because they are not actually doing it. They are imagining, as you say, which means they are considering sensible forms, which means they are really thinking about physical (albeit subtler or airier) forms.
And this is not an issue that arises from you being Kantian in any way: Any good Aristotelian-Thomist is familiar with the issues that arise from any sort of cognition in separated souls. The entire Aristotelian account of human knowledge depends on reference back to phantasms in the imagination which arise from the senses; and such phantasms depend on us having a brain, a corporeal organ. And so, deprived of a body, the typically human mode of cognition becomes impossible. I would venture to guess that St. Thomas only accepts that it is possible for a separated soul to know on account of indications in Scripture, most especially the story of the rich man and Lazarus (Lk 16) which he cites in half his articles on the knowledge of the separated soul (I, q. 89). Though he spends many words on this topic (many more than any fabled treatise on angels dancing on the head of a pin), he can only conclude that this knowledge differs in mode from natural human knowing and that it depends on some sort of divine light, which is given in a fitting but not absolute way.
Also: I too have no confidence one way or the other when it comes to how much my librarians like me. I am probably just a little too interested in their reading habits for them to like me. Oh well, they're my librarians, so they are stuck with me.
(Also too: If you figure out the cure for the particular malaise you have, please share.)