There is something I don’t say out loud.
Not even when I’m alone.
Because when I say it as a full sentence, it sounds worse than it feels inside my head.
It started as curiosity.
That’s what I keep telling myself.
Curiosity.
Nothing more.
Reading things.
Watching examples.
Trying to understand how it works.
Like it was technical.
Something that could be studied without affecting me.
At the beginning, that’s what it was.
I think.
Or I want to believe it was.
I remember sitting there at night.
White light on my face from the screen.
The room completely quiet.
Only the faint hum of a fan and the glow of the laptop.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing important.
Just me.
And text.
A lot of text.
I would close one page.
Open another.
Without looking for anything specific.
Just… checking something.
That’s what feels uncomfortable now when I think about it.
I wasn’t learning.
I was returning.
And I don’t know how to say that without it sounding wrong.
It wasn’t interest.
It was repetition.
Like something inside me wasn’t finishing.
Something very small.
But persistent.
Then I started noticing something else.
It wasn’t what I was reading.
It was what stayed with me afterward.
I felt… off.
I don’t know how else to put it.
Off in the body.
Like an attention that doesn’t fully leave.
I close the laptop.
Stand up.
Go to the kitchen.
Drink water.
But I’m still thinking about it.
Not a specific idea.
The structure.
Always the same thing.
Waiting.
Receiving.
Following an instruction.
Not deciding.
Not anticipating.
That’s what got stuck in me.
And it embarrasses me to admit it.
Because it doesn’t fit me.
Or the version I have of myself.
I’ve always seen myself as someone who controls things.
Who understands what he does.
Who doesn’t get lost in things like this.
But something doesn’t match.
Because if it were just curiosity, it would have faded.
It didn’t.
It did the opposite.
It became more frequent.
More automatic.
Like my attention started returning on its own.
Without me deciding.
That’s what unsettles me.
Not the content.
The form.
The pattern.
The fact that something in me responds to that dynamic.
As if resting isn’t enough.
As if letting go of control isn’t just relief.
But something else.
Harder to name.
I remember one specific night.
I don’t know why that one.
The screen was the only light in the room.
Dust floating through it for a second before I stopped noticing.
But now I remember it.
And I don’t know why that matters either.
I kept reading.
No music.
No distractions.
Just text.
And I couldn’t fully stop.
I could have closed it.
That’s the strange part.
I could have stood up.
But I didn’t.
Like part of me was waiting for something.
Not information.
Not answers.
Just… returning to the same gesture.
Open.
Read.
Return.
Close.
Repeat.
That’s what I feel embarrassed about.
Not what I read.
But that I return.
That I repeat.
That I stay.
Like there’s something in that structure that calms me in a way I don’t fully understand.
It’s not excitement like I thought before.
It’s something else.
Quieter.
More uncomfortable.
The idea of not having to decide.
Of something else setting the rhythm.
Just for a moment.
Just that.
And I don’t know what it means that this feels so easy to look at.
Or so hard to stop looking at.
Sometimes I close everything.
Promise myself I won’t go back.
And I go back anyway.
Not immediately.
But I do.
Always.
And that doesn’t fit the image I have of myself.
Because I’m not like this.
Or I wasn’t.
Or I tell myself I wasn’t.
And now I’m not sure where one thing ends and the other begins.
I just know I keep reading.
Even when I’m not looking for anything.
And there is something in that repetition that feels too easy.
Too quiet.
Too much like me.
I have to move my neck.
I’m not moving it.
And the thought of moving it always comes later.
I have to move my neck I am not moving it…
