Thought, Vision, and Sustenance

Waking in darkness, which is how I want to wake each morning (and how one should wake each day), allows me to collect the energy I saved during sleep. Finally, with the return to Daylight Saving Time, I may be able to return to my habit of waking in darkness. (I have mixed feelings about the change in the way we manipulate time, though.) That energy enables me to begin thinking afresh—either about the contents of my own world or about others’ ideas and philosophies. Or both. In fact, of course, others’ thoughts often spur my own or provide opportunities to adapt mine to the wider world. This morning, the quotation extracted from his essay, “A New Refutation of Time,” by Jorge Luis Borges was one of several triggers. The Borges extract I read was included in The Marginalian’s weekly digest, published by Maria Popova: “Time is a river that sweeps me along, but I am a river…Time is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.” These words give me much to ponder; time—a precious concept—fascinates me. As I’ve said before, I am enamored with the ideas contained in the Lebanese Arabic word: Soubhiyé, “the whisper of dawn, when the house is still in slumber, allowing one to savor the stillness before the day begins.” That word describes to me peace, tranquility, and a sense of comfort with the world as it is…at least for a time.

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Now, after just having asserted that waking in darkness enables me to think afresh, my brain has decided to contest that contention. At the moment, I have a thousand things on my mind, but they all seem cloudy; indistinct. One thought slides into another, blurring the first one, then drifts into yet another. None of them reach any conclusions or destinations before they spin off in another direction, taking my focus with them. For some reason, an analogy comes to mind: it’s like trying to count the contents of a jar of coins while listening to someone else count backward from 2021, but skipping every third number.

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The first shot of expresso this morning was nothing short of awful. Something must have gone wrong during the short brew cycle. Either that or a long-dead mouse was somehow mixed in with the grounds.  So, my next step is to try again, this time without the mouse. Because my potassium levels have been bouncing around (too high, mostly), I should reduce its intake, so so bananas for me for the moment. Instead, a baby-sized cup of apple sauce had to suffice. And a baby can of tomato juice. I’m thinking about the possibility of taking a road trip to the donut place that has spectacular apple fritters to supplement the sauce. Or maybe a jalapeño klobasnek (AKA kolache). But, since I’ve already eaten, could that be considered gluttony? My weight has skyrocketed from its low near 140 pounds to something in the neighborhood of 160. This cannot continue, at least not the point that it reaches the unpleasant point at which I cannot look down and see my feet.

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