So there are two questions I’ve been pondering all day, and I just want to put them out here to see what everyone has to say. But first, I’ve got to paint the idea I want you to see.

So this morning I didn’t really feel like doing much. I ended up taking a two-and-a-half hour nap, midday. I woke up, went through the motions of a day; I checked my email, my snail mail, eventually got a bite to eat, went to colloquium and a reading group. All very routine. Mindlessly routine. We all have days like this, where we just lack the desire to do much of anything. Just go through the motions, and tomorrow will be here soon enough.

Cutting to the Chase

But all my life, I’ve had days like that… on steroids. Not many, but they’ve been there; once every couple months, perhaps. It’s not a good feeling, but it’s not a bad feeling; in fact, I think at the very core it’s a total lack of feeling. Nothingness. So I’m not here to say I felt bad, or felt elated, but just to ponder what exactly this phenomena might be.

It’s a mind-boggling emptiness that leaves me wondering why exactly I woke up. Or, perhaps, why I’ll go to sleep and do it again the next day. Normally I’m busy, driven, active; I know what I’m doing, where I’m going, and why. But it’s as if, once in a blue moon, all of that ambition and self-awareness disappears at the flip of a switch. I spend a day—my waking hours between two bouts of sleep—trying to figure out why I’m here, and what the point really is. Take everything you hold dear, and then imagine rendering it completly meaningless for a day. What, then, goes through your head? Is this how it feels to have no ambition or desire? Intense apathy, paradox and all.

This is a bizarre reality for a mind accustomed to caring about something, anything, and everything. And it’s happened for as long as I can remember, back to elementary school. Not often, but it’s so wholly distinct that I can easily tell a day when it’s hit me; generally, without rhyme or reason… or so I think.

Is this a shared feeling that many people have on occasion? Or is it special to me, in this extraordinarily odd head of mine?

Riddle me that…