The Monkey Mind

I am writing to you in the first week of May. Perhaps my diction is not as refined as you might expect, for which I beg your forgiveness. (PC:  Melodic Driver; https://www.pinterest.com/pin/1099230221570406166/) "Tethered to this existence, days pass into nights and nights into days. I scroll through the perfection captured on your wall—the moments you share, showered with thumbs‑ups and kind comments. I see possibilities of connection but get lost in the numbers, realizing you will never address my genuine reactions or clumsy queries among the crowd of strangers. I tried—and I have failed—to fit your world view. Yours, perfected over years of social interactions, has evolved from a private account into a high‑resolution chronicle of adventures that seem only yours to enjoy. I used to adore; now I simply click “like” like everyone else. I am a blurred spectator, quietly following your new posts and milestones. Weeks and months pass. I have added and deleted many, and many...

Just finished reading the short novel The Stranger by Albert Camus, and what stays with me most is not the crime alone, but the strange-familiar stillness of the man who commits it. From the very beginning, the narrative places us inside Meursault’s mind, and through his detached voice, we encounter a peculiar form of alienation. The novel opens with the death of his mother, a woman he visited only on Sundays, and sometimes not even then. Their relationship had grown so distant that they were almost strangers. He had little in common with her, little to say, and perhaps little to feel, and he knew she felt the same. When she dies, he does not cry, nor does he attempt to fake grief. He attends the funeral because it’s expected, but he does not ask to have the coffin opened. Most would have asked to have the nails removed to see their dead parent one last time; he does not. Time had already sealed that distance long before the coffin was nailed shut. This detachment is not cruelty; witho...