There are a thousand things I want to write about, but only nine hundred of them are coherent enough to put into the vorpal oven and bake until dry. And my ability to choose is paralyzed. Like the ass in the parable who starves because there is no basis for choosing between two equally desirable feasts, I write nothing because all the possibilities are so enticing. The grooves have worn deep in my brain.
I don’t remember how to write. My tenth grade English teacher taught us that the first paragraph should be an introduction that draws the reader in somehow. The thesis statement must be the first sentence of the second paragraph, no exceptions. (Once when I had enough points accumulated for the class to get an A that quarter no matter what else I did I deliberately wrote a paper in which the thesis statement did not appear until the final paragraph, which was also the conclusion. It didn’t seem to faze her—though of course she might not have read it at all, since it would make no difference to my grade.) But the mindscum principle really doesn’t work like that anyway. Where are we going? I’m not sure. How will we know when we get there? The text will come to a stop.
These may not be exactly rules, but they’re all I’ve got. Groping blindly into a pre-destined future (assuming the determinists are correct in their assumptions) is no guarantee of coherence, but neither is it assurance of failure. Whatever it is, it was baked into the framework of things since the universe first started unfolding. There’s reassurance there, along with fatalistic despair. If there’s no free will, how do we know we’re not all slaves?
I’m going to try to fight my way out of this paper bag, but the prospects look bad. What’s worse than bad? Abysmal, maybe. I’m going to post this as is, even though it never turned into anything, in the hopes that I will force myself into choice and coherence by displaying my incoherence and indecision for all to see. Maybe embarrassment will work when all else fails.
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