Wednesday, September 16, 2020

Jonesing for news

(For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)

-- Acts 17:21

In the past few days I keep catching myself checking the news and refreshing my social media feeds. Not literally, of course -- I don't read the news and don't have any social media feeds to refresh -- but doing the equivalent: checking the handful of blogs I read far more frequently than makes sense given that no one's been posting much recently, branching out to more frequently updated (and therefore lower-quality, newsier) blogs, checking my own blog for new comments, checking for responses to comments I've left elsewhere -- basically a slightly more respectable version of mainlining Farcebook. 

This is highly uncharacteristic behavior for me, and I'm not sure why I'm doing it. I have this persistent semi-conscious feeling that if I can just amass enough data -- new data, things I don't already know -- and organize and visualize it just so (I keep seeing mental images of extremely complicated color-coded maps), then -- I don't know, I'll be freaking enlightened or something. Everything will fall into place. Something Very Important will become clear.

At the same time, I find myself unable to write anything of substance. My drafts folder is full of beginnings of posts on a wide variety of  topics -- metaphysics, Tarot, the Bible, math, you know the kind of stuff I write -- but I just can't seem to work on any of them. It's a minor miracle I've managed to write, what is it, three whole paragraphs and counting on this post!

Always in the background is this feeling that I'm waiting for something, that Something Big is about to happen and I just have to maintain a holding pattern and wait for it to happen already before I can do anything else.

I wouldn't normally consider this "how I'm feeling today" kind of stuff to be worth posting, but I know that several of my pen friends and fellow bloggers have been feeling more or less the same way, which makes me think this is something bigger than my own psychology. What might that be? I wish I could tell you, but I'm still waiting dammit!

5 comments:

Otto said...

Have you heard of the prophesies of Ingersoll Lockwood? Especially his book "The Last President". If true, we can expect the Capitol and President will be blown up with explosives, and this will mark the end of the USA as a republic. It would be the ultimateOctober Surprise!

Bruce Charlton said...

As you will see, I have tried to articulate on my blog why I have not felt inclined to write much lately (and nothing at all for several days). For me it is a working-through of some half-realisations to what are very stark and radical conclusions, concerning the possibility of the communication we aim-at in blogging. It seems that being half-right about stuff is pretty much useless; and in some ways reinforces exactly the demonic agenda I want to oppose.

a kullervo said...

Greetings,

According to official history (some beg to differ), after spending most of their presence on this planet searching for food, avoiding becoming food, procreating and resting, humans decided - for yet unknown reason(s) (perhaps they were pushed) - to dedicate themselves to increasingly complex - and conflictful (inner and outer struggles)- forms of using the stretch of time not used for sleep; to my mind (and being guilty as charged), one of the strangest is the search for meaning (which, when turned into an ideology - whether through religion or politics,- is arguably one of the most dangerous.)

Kind regards.

S.K. Orr said...

Yeah, baby, yeah.

I have that exact same feeling...that Something Big is about to happen.

For me, it's a reluctance to commit to doing anything that requires an output of internal energy. I recently had technical difficulties with my blog, and I realized that I was RELIEVED that I couldn't log on and post my usual natterings.

I will say in all sincerity that this waiting-room feeling has brought about a sense of the value, the absolute worth of Christ and following Him. A SENSE, mind you...not an intellectual, analytical "settling" of anything. Just an interior shove. And I'm grateful for it.

Good stuff, William. I'm grateful for you, too, brother.

Sean G. said...

The doldrums are a silent terror like no other.

K. West, five years or hours, and spiders

I was listening to some David Bowie last night and was struck by the album art for  Ziggy Stardust . Right above Bowie is a sign that says ...