Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man's best years not in sweet sins but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why, in the gratification of curiosities so feeble that the man is only half aware of them, in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels, in whistling tunes that he does not like, or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries that have not even lust or ambition to give them a relish, but which, once chance association has started them, the creature is too weak and fuddled to shake off. ― C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Fuddled. A state of mind I spend a lot of time in. There is a lot to be fuddled about. Life is fuddling.
E.g.: why is it my children can hear me mention food from the other end of the house, but not a request to put their clothes away when they are standing right next to me? How come I always forget precisely one item at the supermarket whether I have written a list or not? Who are the people that buy things off infomercials and can we put them in a room together and make some reality tv? What is the actual point of a blobfish? How can I pay the ferryman if I don't have an obolus, don't know where to get an obolus, don't know what an obolus is? Does the underworld have a currency exchange outlet? Or WiFi? Is it weird to not be comfortable leaving a shop when you're the only customer in it until someone else walks in? Are reptoids even a thing?
I bought some groceries, but not enough.
Viktor Frankl has excellent advice. He says something like live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now. To be exactly precise. It's kind of brilliant.
