inward gauntlet

I haven’t written much in the last few days. I’ve been in quite a funk for some reason, and I fear that if I sit down and hack something out it will be nothing but a string of curse words flecked with spittle and bone.

And here we are, Monday morning, going on hour two in the library after last night’s seven hour marathon of distractions and essay-writing. It will be another two hours of typing back at the apartment until a fetid essay-monkey is unloaded from my back. Unloading that burden allows the necessary space for other primates to latch on and ook and tug on my ears.

I feel like someone is running cheese graters up and down my skin, trying to parry away everything that isn’t bone. My existence feels reduced. My world is small. I’m wrapped up in web design and writing and reading and such and I don’t mind that much, but at the same time I find it’s too inward. It hasn’t been about turning myself to the outside world, but bringing the world inside. I feel small, inconsequential. I need to get out, but the only way to get out is by turning farther inward. Study, read, absorb. Not until my collegiate gauntlet is conquered can I be turned loose in the world.

For now, it’s isolation. Isolation and experimentation with Buddhism. Together we will find some answers.