I shouldn’t keep reading Sade.
That was the first thing I thought this morning.
The second thing I did was open another page.
I think that’s the problem.
Not what I’m reading.
The order of things.
First I tell myself to stop.
Then I continue.
Every time.
Today I caught myself doing something ridiculous.
I read a sentence.
Just one sentence.
It wasn’t even particularly intense.
It was about air.
About breathing.
About someone becoming aware of every inhale.
I read it.
I moved on.
And ten minutes later I realized I was breathing more slowly.
As if I had tried to understand the sentence with my body.
I’m embarrassed to write that.
Because it sounds absurd.
But it happened.
What’s worse is that it wasn’t the first time.
I’m starting to recognize a pattern.
At first I read out of curiosity.
Now I look for certain things.
Not directly.
That would be too easy to admit.
I just notice a small disappointment when they aren’t there.
And a strange sense of relief when they are.
That worries me more than it should.
Last night I closed my laptop early.
I felt proud of myself.
I thought I was finally letting go of the obsession.
For almost an hour I didn’t think about it.
Then I caught myself remembering a scene I couldn’t even remember properly.
I couldn’t remember the words.
I couldn’t remember the details.
I only remembered a feeling.
The feeling of having found something that made me stop.
And I kept trying to return to it.
Like trying to remember a song.
Or a face.
Or a dream.
It wasn’t exactly arousal.
I still don’t know what to call it.
It was something worse.
Familiarity.
As if part of me had recognized something before I did.
That’s what unsettles me.
Not that it interests me.
That it feels familiar.
There are moments when I can still convince myself this is intellectual.
History.
Literature.
Psychology.
Human curiosity.
Then small things happen.
Ridiculous things.
I’m reading.
I reach a paragraph.
And I notice myself slowing down.
As if I don’t want to finish it too quickly.
As if I want to stay there a few seconds longer.
I can never explain why.
I never find a good enough reason.
But it happens.
And each time it happens sooner.
Before, I needed a specific scene.
Now a single idea is enough.
A word.
A possibility.
I think that’s changed.
And I don’t know when it changed.
That’s the part that frightens me a little.
I can’t find the moment.
There’s a gap.
As if I arrived late to my own curiosity.
As if part of me kept moving forward while I still believed I was observing from a distance.
A few minutes ago I was about to close every tab.
Honestly.
My hand was already on the mouse.
Then I asked myself something.
A small question.
A harmless one.
Just one more.
And the moment it appeared I knew I would search again.
The strange thing isn’t the question.
The strange thing is that it feels as if it had been waiting for me all day.
I have to move my neck I am not moving it…
