On Whatever It Is That Stirs My Mind At This Ungodly Hour

I struggle daily with trying to understand just exactly what the hell my brain is doing. Not from a biological standpoint, mind you, but more specifically: why on earth does my mind jerk itself around and around when it seems like it could be so easy, so relaxing, to just settle down somewhere. Anywhere, really. Get to business, mind, or get out. Tonight, that's the message my mind has for my mind. What a stupid paradox.

Just moments ago, I was nearly asleep. I was hanging, uncomfortably, from the edge of my bed, barely able to focus on the screen of my laptop, which was resting on the floor. This is usually where it ends up at night, because by the time I've dragged the laptop to my bed to work in a more supine position, there is already little hope that I'll muster the energy to actually lift the damn thing back up on to my desk. It's an odd ritual I've developed, really. The first thing I do upon waking up is pick my laptop up off the floor and restore it to its more traditional desktop locale.

This is all besides the point. Which in a way, relates to the point, which is: my brain is a friggin' mess.

The reason I mention being nearly asleep is that, at the time, what I believed was going to be my last waking action was a brief check-in on this blog, from which I've been absent for an embarrassingly lengthy period of time. But then I started reading my old posts. As I read, I began to recall the various states of mind that produced those entries, and how the one consistent quality of those multiple mind-states was that I really enjoyed articulating my thoughts on the topic at hand. I enjoyed the experience of writing. And so here I am now, well past my arbitrary bedtime, writing.

I often find during the course of the day things will occur (ha, what a stupidly ambiguous proclamation; what I mean is 'specific, noteworthy things'), and my brain will exclaim: "that would be great to write about!" Yet without fail, I've usually completely forgotten whatever so stimulated me after a few minutes have passed. I am almost certain that I went through this process earlier today, but I have no idea at all what the catalyst was. What sort of twisted bastard of a brain would produce feelings of euphoria during the act of writing, actively identify topics or events or themes that would likely engender such feelings of euphoria by instigating an act of writing, and then, in one fell swoop, destroy those very seeds? And, on top of that, be enough of a bitch to allow me to at least remember that there were in fact seeds at one point?

My brain is that sort of brain.

Well I've got news for you brain: I'm on to you! And although I've said this many times before (in writing, so I have tangible evidence), I'm going to do my best to thwart you. I'm going to try to breathe some new life into this stale and lonesome blog. But I'm also going to shift the approach a tad. The way I've been approaching things hasn't been very true to the essence of blogging. I've been preparing mini-essays at times and posting them, rather than leaving a record of my in-the-moment, somewhat unfiltered responses to the things that get my gears turning.

I'm throwing consistency out the window. Maybe even coherence. I'm going to create a true log, a web log, of what I think about whatever I'm thinking about. If no one's listening, that's fine. It'll be an instructive experience, and it will help me to illuminate the very ways in which my brain is currently being elusive and somewhat of a bitch. It'll track the evolution of my thoughts and opinions, and it will provide future interested parties a clear and frightening picture of what is surely to be my descent into madness.

Mostly, it'll be an accomplishment, however meager. It will be the willful corralling of my brain, and it will be a glorious thing.

And now, now I am tired.