It struck me this morning (when I woke up prematurely again
after 4½ hours sleep!) that the single driving force behind life is the impulse
to do things. Some people lose that impulse; they stop doing things because
they don’t see any point. We call it apathy or ennui. And eventually the
process can get to the stage where it affects the person’s whole sense of relationship
with external reality. It loses its meaning, so they stop making the effort.
They stop having their hair cut, they stop trimming their finger nails, they
stop bathing, they stop washing their clothes; they don’t care what they look
or smell like because they no longer feel connected with anything beyond them.
We’ve seen it happen occasionally to extremely rich people who’ve lived active,
exciting lives, and it isn’t hard to imagine why such people are the ones most likely to
be prey to it.
I’m feeling the first stirrings of that condition in myself,
so what I have to do now is observe it, as I observe everything – see how far
it goes and what it feels like, while forcing myself to retain sufficient will
not to let it take hold. I have faith, and I trust the universe to give me a
hand if I teeter. Ever seen the film Flatliners?
It’s a bit like that.
And it might be all over in the blink of somebody’s eye or a
single encouraging word.
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