Abstract Piercings
I remember my maternal great-grandfather slipping into Alzheimer's. He only nodded through family reunions. He forgot his own children. My grandfather -- his son -- had to hold his penis for him when he needed to take a piss.
More than anything, I have always feared losing my mental faculties, my capacity for memory. Being among family and friends and unable to recognize them, not being able to follow a thought through to its end, not able to fend off pain with the mind tricks we know. I can only imagine that this is the loss of self. I call that death.
Lately, I've been noticing my mind slipping in small ways. On breaks at work, I'll be thinking of something and not remember at all how I got there, to that point. I easily lose track of time. Focussing has become harder.
I think it is the result of stress and pacing. When you are stressed out, you go faster, jerkier. Your attention is compromised. You have to rely on habit rather than casting a wider and more patient net for evidence. The mind shallows out. The current culture, of course, also contributes: speed and shallowness being the format of everything right now.
The poetry I started writing several years ago tried to address this crisis of attention in culture, even as I saw it affecting me. I tried to block easy consumption of the poem by breaking everything up into small, discrete pieces, hopefully forcing the reader to slow in order to piece everything back together again. At the same time, I tried to make the individual units, phrases, as ordinary and everyday as could be. There had to be a respect for and interest in complexity and difference that made the slowing of attention desirable, necessary, for understanding.
I am not sure even now if this approach is one likely to work.
Odd, though: It seems I'm going to have to lower my stress, slow my pace, go for more depth, and sharpen my attention to get the mind back in pocket.
We'll call this circle a spiral ... .
More than anything, I have always feared losing my mental faculties, my capacity for memory. Being among family and friends and unable to recognize them, not being able to follow a thought through to its end, not able to fend off pain with the mind tricks we know. I can only imagine that this is the loss of self. I call that death.
Lately, I've been noticing my mind slipping in small ways. On breaks at work, I'll be thinking of something and not remember at all how I got there, to that point. I easily lose track of time. Focussing has become harder.
I think it is the result of stress and pacing. When you are stressed out, you go faster, jerkier. Your attention is compromised. You have to rely on habit rather than casting a wider and more patient net for evidence. The mind shallows out. The current culture, of course, also contributes: speed and shallowness being the format of everything right now.
The poetry I started writing several years ago tried to address this crisis of attention in culture, even as I saw it affecting me. I tried to block easy consumption of the poem by breaking everything up into small, discrete pieces, hopefully forcing the reader to slow in order to piece everything back together again. At the same time, I tried to make the individual units, phrases, as ordinary and everyday as could be. There had to be a respect for and interest in complexity and difference that made the slowing of attention desirable, necessary, for understanding.
I am not sure even now if this approach is one likely to work.
Odd, though: It seems I'm going to have to lower my stress, slow my pace, go for more depth, and sharpen my attention to get the mind back in pocket.
We'll call this circle a spiral ... .