speaking only for myself, i've noticed that there are only a very few slots that must always be occupied--hastily replaced, never left vacant for too long--in order to calm down and not pine. i am not talking about maslow type things, or self-help 'goals' like happiness and fulfillment. those are only secondary to an irrepressible compulsion to think, to imagine--the finest pleasure ever, the worst torment possible.
some people can grow in a soliloquy, others can't think in a monologue. one splits oneself in two, and strives always to fashion a sort of crude mirror, a sentient mirror, something good enough for a dialogue. one writes. they who have their own mirror always in front of them are the wisest, the most astute. they have made all their counterarguments and truly know their minds, both their minds, their many minds. for them, thinking is not impeded by the cacophony of their other selves, their anti-selves, their objecting selves, but bears the full weight of consideration, of having envisioned every proliferating point of divergence, every forking path, every node in the rhizome. imagine a vision like that. you would know the past and the future, because you would know yourself, and you could sit still and play in your labyrinth, unraveling it like so much string, while everyone else around you makes noise with their mouths and their hands.
me, i can't maneuver through a conversation with my other selves quite so well. the other end must always have someone, someone else looking in, reflecting, refuting, speaking. that is the only value, the only bond, the only bind i have ever recognised in people, and that is why i pine. a state of paralysis is torment, but it is less terrifying than thinking, truly thinking through the labyrinth, which is the precipice one is always drawn toward, the abyss into which one tries very hard not to look too deeply lest the inevitable happen, the inevitable already intuited as such, yet denied, deferred, demurred. if only time would hurry up and end.
some people can grow in a soliloquy, others can't think in a monologue. one splits oneself in two, and strives always to fashion a sort of crude mirror, a sentient mirror, something good enough for a dialogue. one writes. they who have their own mirror always in front of them are the wisest, the most astute. they have made all their counterarguments and truly know their minds, both their minds, their many minds. for them, thinking is not impeded by the cacophony of their other selves, their anti-selves, their objecting selves, but bears the full weight of consideration, of having envisioned every proliferating point of divergence, every forking path, every node in the rhizome. imagine a vision like that. you would know the past and the future, because you would know yourself, and you could sit still and play in your labyrinth, unraveling it like so much string, while everyone else around you makes noise with their mouths and their hands.
me, i can't maneuver through a conversation with my other selves quite so well. the other end must always have someone, someone else looking in, reflecting, refuting, speaking. that is the only value, the only bond, the only bind i have ever recognised in people, and that is why i pine. a state of paralysis is torment, but it is less terrifying than thinking, truly thinking through the labyrinth, which is the precipice one is always drawn toward, the abyss into which one tries very hard not to look too deeply lest the inevitable happen, the inevitable already intuited as such, yet denied, deferred, demurred. if only time would hurry up and end.
Being able to come up with a counter argument to your own counter argument is not good at all. It takes away any faith you might have in yourself, renders you unable to make decisions and leaves you in a constant state of doubt about your own opinions. On the other hand, if you don't set much store on being somebody respected for having an Opinion, you can always sit and think and argue with yourself and eventually come to some sort of a resolution. I've just learned to do that and it feels good.
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