I feel tired and unmotivated.
Lack of focus ends up exhausting me and making me feel like I’m not making progress even if I do a lot of things.
I need to escape my mental traps that slow me down and sometimes even paralyze me.
How to describe that process in which my mind prevents me from acting, and makes me doubt even the simplest things?…. I hesitate. In waking up in the morning should a take my cell phone right now and explore the latest news on instagram or should i write my dream. Should I take my portable speaker to listen to music while I go to the bathroom, or do I go to the bathroom without it? Can I take a book with me or not?
At the same time, an emotional component makes that little dilemma even more difficult, as I get angry at myself for taking so much mental time to decide. A mockery inside me calls me pathetic. As if I really became helpless by not having those electronic gadgets.
A fearful within me has conquered a large number of mornings making me believe that the world is unbearable without a piece of music. It is afraid of anything that looks like emptiness.
Bukowski says in a well-known quote that if that doesn’t come bursting out, as something that won’t let you rest, or as something inevitable; don’t do it.
In a way I agree with him, because for a while I’ve been trying to do just exactly what I want. Nothing for commitment, nothing just to make a good impression on others, nothing that is seen internally by me as a self-imposed obligation. Nothing I can’t enjoy.
The desire I speak of could be translated in the world of Bukowski as that which pushes me and gives me a reason to get closer to what I really want in life.
Sometimes I think that nothing comes like this. That truly I want nothing.
But how could it be not to want? Is that possible?
Sometimes not wanting to move or act is just a desire to stop and see all that mental noise. The ocean of conflicting needs. To study that chaos in order to decide what to prioritize. And when arriving at the decision that panorama that was before full of chaos becomes clean. All that noise now becomes a symphony.
But it is necessary to stop to be able to choose.
As I write this, my girlfriend (Pamela) approaches me sensing my tribulation. She shows me the deck of cards. She tells me to choose one. I take the one I know is for me.
Since I made the self-portrait documentary (In Search of the Apalamich), the tarot has become increasingly symbolic in my life.
I turn the card and see; it is the Devil upside down. Seeing it like this, the torch looks downwards.
-Normally the Devil symbolizes someone who has hit rock bottom and now stands up with a light that allows him to see. Determined and in control of his impulses, he walks with a firm step. But when it’s upside down – says Pamela – it could be interpreted as someone who uses the torch to illuminate down the world of his shadows.
I am going to find what bothers me and holds me back, that which is hidden in my darkness. And I’m going to capture it.
Today has been one of those days.
