Chopin, Nocturne No. 11

How menacing is every thought, every whisper of wind flowing past your ears on a windless day; every tree branch brushing against a bedroom window when night is well overhead; every soft murmur of longed for I-love-you’s from the mouths that have rejected your own heart. 

I sometimes wonder if all of these thoughts, these manufactured and over-polished fears and wishes, could have ever been useful to ancient man. What did cavemen pine for? I’m sure they wanted to eat and fuck just as badly as I do, but they could not articulate it as I can, surely, without the language. Maybe the thoughts I have are one and the same and I simply articulate them to the point of parody.

Maybe ancient man just knew how to want or what to want. Maybe ancient man just knew how long to want for. They also had fewer things to want, less people to want, less of themselves to want. They never had to answer, “what should I be?”

The challenge of living in a society with as much philosophical currency as I’m accustomed to is the danger of every thought. The congruence of too much time with which to think and the foolishly perceived importance of every thought gives me too many options.

You cannot question the value of life when its value is static.