cul de sacs
occasionally when I'm reading, some part of my mind teeters ever so gently into thinking about the fact that I'm reading rather than actually reading. when this happens, everything is shot to hell; my mind seizes up with being too conscious of the act of reading and all the complexities it entails, and I can no longer focus on what the text is saying so much as that it is a text (what are all these hieroglyphs, these strange symbols on the page that somehow confer meaning?) this happens with sleep (unable to sleep if I'm thinking about sleeping) and with playing the piano (unable to play the piano if I think about how I'm reading two staves of music and operating my hands and feet, all at the same time). reflexivity and self-consciousness is well and good, but catapults you in endless circles (like dear derrida, who brilliantly but tragically differances himself into intellectual dead ends). but I'd much rather actually read, sleep and play the piano. the question is: how do I make my mind justSTOPITforchristssakeandletmereadmybook?