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Language Log

Tuesday, May. 01, 2018 - 8:07 a.m.

All yesterday I was perseverating on something. It’s a weird experience. If it doesn’t happen to you, this is how it is for me: Usually there’s some problem or issue that I have manufactured, and I can’t stop thinking about it, even if it’s not urgent at all. I sort of want to think about it, so I can’t convince myself to try to find a distraction. It’s all I can think or write or talk about and if anyone takes my attention away from it, I get very irritable. At the same time, the solutions I come up with in that state are bad ideas, bad solutions, weird and absurd in all kinds of ways. And one part of me recognizes that, while the other part is convinced it is the best idea ever and I must do it NOW, it is the only solution to the problem and I must try it, must solve the problem NOW. You all have seen some of my crazy-ass art ideas that result from this process. They’re only the tip of the iceberg, really. When it’s happening I genuinely can’t judge which ideas are good and which bad, and I can’t stop the thinking until I have pursued a solution to some degree. So I sometimes do some really weird shit. If the problem involves people, this is the point at which things get uncomfortable for everyone. It’s also when I can’t stop talking about it, and if there are people on the receiving end of that, they pray for a break in the weather or something. I repeat myself. Many iterations.

So that was what I did yesterday. It’s still happening a little today, I can’t tell if it’ll get worse or better.

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