Thoughts in Post-Quarantine: Existential Edition

By: Jorge Jimenez

How entirely devoid of focus, and how insufficient the grasp my mind has on what’s dead in front of it. There is but one thing I can think of, and that is anything. The possibilities are boundless. Bounds, in fact, are what’s missing. These walls are broken. Like a reservoir rushing out in all directions, a hall of mirrors shows everything and nothing at once, all fleeting existence has its 15 seconds of fame. There is a free-for-all of wrestling thoughts, reigning champion none of them but the thought of trying to get the rumble under control. Meanwhile, the paper waits. Meanwhile, I float, suspended in real time and space, the only dream here is the weight of my body against this chair. Real as it is, my physicality is still an unimportant constant. 

I live in hunger of everything, incentivized by phones and friends and foolish pursuits. I uplift the anathema of the useful. Thin and light, whenever my body wishes to be, it is so easy to get up and go, and to forego the here and now for the other here and now, and the other, and the other. 

I just can’t pay attention. And when I do, to whom? Imagine a play in the theater and I am act one, and act two, and three, and I am all the characters, and I am all of that simultaneously and never in order. In fact, order is poison. Structure is noise. Severity is laughable. 

In all seriousness, I can’t take this seriously. The last time I finished a thought I forgot. If only I could remember what I’ve forgotten, I could finish that thought, whatever it was. Wasn’t I supposed to be doing something important? 

I am fixed, with literal bolts, almost, to the ethereal. For real - once you realize everything is a myth you start playing with life. Do I write this paper or does the myth perpetuate itself through me? And, aren’t binary questions hogwash, like everything else binary? If you think none of this makes sense, trust me, neither does writing about subsidies at 11am.

Questions are only as good as their intent. If I intend to devalue that which has been given to me then ask away - why can’t I pay attention? But if the intent is to be present, let’s define that present. Let’s say none of this matters, because it doesn’t. We’re a meme. Ten thousand years ago someone played with fire and now I have to finish this spreadsheet. 

Laugh at the philosophers all you want. Laugh. I can’t hear it over the sound of your grinding in that machine. I am, you are, a sack of meat. Terrestrial animals we are, still we keep swimming not to sink into the existential waters of just what the fuck are we doing? 

Sad thought I just had: imagine if I’d spent this time writing a cover letter instead. 

Sleep doctors say the mind needs to associate a specific place and time with sleep. And it’s true, that’s how the mind works, and it’s important, we ought to have defined mental boundaries for physical spaces, and we do it all the time, like the subway is definitely not the place to make eye contact. Take it from me. I’ve done really well in this. My associations could not be more contextually and temporally relevant. My bed is where I remember every email I forgot to send that day. The couch is where I sleep, for an hour at a time, to then wake up feeling like I’ve been comatose for a month and both my arms are dislocated. The kitchen is where takeout is opened and alcohol is served. This is pandemic living: your space is a multi-tasker just like you are. Yes, I can take on two more projects and network and write about subsidies, just like my bicycle can be a clothes hanger and a plant stand before it ever hits the road. 

A map and a picture of a painted door hang on the wall. These are the only two things in my life not multitasking. And I wonder if that’s because I respect them, because I value them. Or is it because you just can’t use anything that’s hanging on a wall. Hogwash. Then, the things that are on the wall undisturbed lay undisturbed because that’s their purpose for me. I respect them. And that brings a point, or rather I do because this is my story. What I give purpose to, I value. What I value, becomes who I am. When there is no place that is defined and no time that is set aside, there is no me. I am, but less. 

You don’t know this but I tried going back to my subsidies paper between paragraphs. I came through again, though. Sometimes we survive our own worst instincts. These words on the screen have no wall around them, no locked door guarding them, there is no riddle to get to them - I do, there is one for me.

I take a breath. With deep breaths come the sleepless nights that come from behind that door, that climb that wall, they are a riddle solved; they are the engine of these typing hands. I am focused now. Sometimes, I exit this hall of mirrors.