Ridiculous Opinions #289
We are currently in the middle of the wilderness. It’s the kind of wilderness where you barely go outside because of the blackflies and mosquitos. They bite. I suffer from those bites. My whole family does.
One of those bites woke me this morning; a furious itching of my left heel. The sensation could not be quelled. I was laying in bed and started just itching my left ankle with my right heel. I couldn’t stop. It felt so good. And when I did stop, the itching started back up again.
It’s also cold. Really cold. I am wearing a sweatshirt right now and I’m still cold. I would like to go outside on the lake, but I cannot do such a thing because it’s too cold. The lake water is cold. I am cold. Everything is cold.
The other day, the electricity went off. It was off for almost twenty-four hours. We barely have a cell signal up here, so we had to make due with a 3G network. How in the world did I survive? How did any of us survive without a constant feed of information?
I wanted to watch the OKC game. They were projected to win the championship. But there are regional restrictions where I am at, so you have to go through a convoluted process in order to watch the game. However, I got it all set up.
Then the electricity went off. I couldn’t watch the game. So, I had to go on an internet blackout. No news about anything until the power came back on. It was just what I had wanted all year…complete isolation.
It was unpleasant.
And I didn’t know when the power would come back. It did not come back until the next morning. We watched the game. OKC lost.
Today, I have nothing to do. No agenda. No plan. Nothing. I don’t know what to do with myself. Do I read a book? Do I draw a picture? Do I write? I’m not sure. This is everything I ever wanted. I’m not sure how to handle that.
Why am I writing this? Well, it appears that my brain has been frazzled from years of internet and busyness. It’s hard to concentrate on things and it’s a difficult adjustment when you suddenly have absolutely nothing to do. We appear to be living in a time where we have to constantly be occupied with something. Our brains need to be stimulated in some form or another; not in a way that is actually engaging, mind you, but more in a way where there is a constant, low hum of nothingness that keeps us from thinking about things. We don’t know how to simply be. That’s a problem.
When there’s nothing to do, I get anxious. I start to feel this pressing anxiety where I think I am wasting my existence if I am not occupied by some mundane task which, in the end, means absolutely nothing. When there is nothing to do, I am not present. My mind is elsewhere. How does one get back inside?
Sure, there are things to do, but I don’t want to do them. I just want to sit here, enjoying the silence, listening to the breeze from the trees outside. I don’t want to read the news. I don’t want to listen to music or watch a movie.
I think I just want to sit here.
Doing nothing.
At all.
