Inertia

I feel like it’s really hard for me to develop thoughts right now, so I decided to write about this. I believe personal inertia builds on itself. If people don’t have the opportunities to place demands on themselves, the capacity to do so slips away. Maybe I really feel the old school slogans: exercise your mind like you would any other muscle… Either way, in my own life, missing opportunities to put effort into my work builds on itself. I have no best explanation for why this is true. Perhaps in the same way that writing about politics is political, (see previous entries…) thinking about organizing thoughts plays an important role in making them happen. Essentially, there is no organic or authentic space from which ideas flow, rather they have to be organized and uncovered through conscious action. Once I reach a situation that doesn’t require the application of mental energy, I stop seeking to apply my experiences to some context or purpose- they have the feel of a flow that washes over me, rather than an experience that involves my will. Perhaps this relates to the basic conflicts of living- the individual subject’s conflict with being defined by and interacting with broader social forces, as mediated by language. My experience with intellectual thought gives a place for me to express my will in relationship to those broader social forces- to choose to confront them or analyze them to find my place in them. Either way, failure to understand my relationship to the world through some sort of conscious effort leaves me feeling demoralized and lethargic.

Duncan