Surely the mind needs a holiday
every now and again; it can’t always be On.
Some of the best mindlessness occurs when one is totally immersed in some or
other activity, looks at the clock and exclaims, “Holy fuck! Is it four-thirty?”
(In the morning.) Total engagement in one thing can mean complete obliviousness
to all else. This is a fine state.
I’ve engaged in a bit of
mind-numbing over the years, usually involving a nice number or two, or three.
Losing one’s mind, of course, is an altogether different matter, not
recommended.
For many people mindlessness
comes naturally. These people are inadvertists, people who persistently fail to
take notice of things. Ammon Shea describes them in his Reading the OED as people who “stumble through life seemingly with
no other purpose than to make it difficult for the rest of us.”
These are people who wear
headphones while walking aimlessly on bike paths so no bell can disturb them. They
stand at the front of a long queues at ticket counters asking about train
departures two months from now. They get rid of all their small coins at the 12-items-or-less
check-out at the supermarket. You get the picture.
Mindlessness ought be a private
pursuit. Total immersion in a favourite activity to the exclusion of all else:
private. Smoking enough joints to be totally mind-fucked: private. Reverie, idle
contemplation to no particular end: private. Public mindlessness, inadvertism, is
unconscionable.
Unlike those to whom
mindlessness comes naturally, I need artificial stupefacients to achieve it.
Having given up THC, I’m left with a mind that won’t turn off. Anywhere,
anytime, it’s churning away, turning things over, big and small, and five
senses sucking up everything in their purview.
Ah, well …
Rock on.
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