Eleven
We’re programmed to live outside our heads. We’ll think about things when we need to, but that thinking will function within the parameters that genetics, upbringing, and environment have programmed into us. Most people never become truly self-aware. They never – or at least rarely – think outside of that programming. One exception is when you experience something like anxiety or depression, and that whole thought process turns inward. Then it becomes this scathing, torturous, unrelenting self-examination through every moment. Even the good times elicit that self-reflection and, as a byproduct of that, doubt and insecurity. I’m not going to go into work too much – at least not now.…
One
I always worry that death will be a restless sleep, that there won’t be peace, but a constant tossing and turning trying to find something that’s always out of my capacity to achieve. I’ve had sleeping difficulties all my adult life, so when I wake now, I’m unsurprised. I don’t know the time. My clock radio has an LCD display – I bought it years ago for specifically that reason: LCD numbers don’t glow in the dark, and don’t remind me of the time. That’s just one of the sleep strategies I’ve learned. Most of them don’t work. Nothing works for everybody, and, for various reasons, my head’s particularly resistant.…