Friday, September 17, 2021

How to Clear the Mind

photo: Alejandro Linares Garcia

To stop thinking requires discipline. It might seem like sweets, sex or any of the items that are associated with pleasure. However, it’s grueling work and proof that the forces of dysphoria and euphoria are in a knock down drag out war—that isn’t mitigated by a  countervailing entropy. You’ve heard the plaintive whine of those longing for a so-called good time, particularly in these parlous times when the world is either drowning or burning up. If only they could place themselves under the palm in some Caribbean resort with gentle waves lapping up on the shore. What’s found on the cutting room floor of this particular travel ad, is the moment where the nagging old crone screams “where are you Charles, I’ve been looking all over for you” as the beautiful topless girl wipes herself off, picking up her copy of Der Stern, as she lays down on her settee sipping the daiquiri with the little umbrella that has just been served to her by one of the unctuously angry local natives who has a copy of Franz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth in their back pocket. At this very moment you realize you’ve picked up what are turning out to be painful second-degree burns. So much for “Club Hedonism!” Emptying the mind is similar to emptying the bowels. You don’t relax before a colonoscopy. You have to prep and get knocked out with Propofol. In order to be cleared of thoughts, the mind has to be dosed with a (verbal) diarrhetic before the skull is struck with the equivalent of a spiritual 2x4.

Read "It's Not a Rehearsal" by Francis Levy, HuffPost


No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.