An Incomplete Listing of Useless Thought Loops

These tend to emerge when The Work isn’t going well and my compromised brain decides to initiate shutdown protocols by focusing on unsolvable, unending loops of utter futility, most likely because I let myself believe them to be solvable and transformative; the reality is that they are anything but. Block the following upon sighting of their invasive rumblings:

Which social network to use… (It doesn’t matter; use whichever you happen to enjoy, for some reason or another – if you enjoy any of them. The right tool for the right job – just don’t be the tool.)



Which RSS feeds to cut and how to optimize online reading time… (There’s no such thing as optimal online reading time.)



What to post and when (It doesn’t matter; whatever and whenever the hell you feel like.)



Which writing implement to use (Whatever feels right at the time – though know that you will invariably return to mechanical pencil, smearing be damned.)



Whether to read the news while eating breakfast / lunch / etc… (No. One thing at a time: when you eat, eat; when you write, write…)

Worth closing with the concluding lines of Alain de Botton’s THE NEWS: A USER’S MANUAL…

“A flourishing life requires a capacity to recognize the times when the news no longer has anything original or important to teach us; periods when we should refuse imaginative connection with strangers, when we must leave the business of governing, triumphing, failing, creating or killing to others, in the knowledge that we have our own objectives to honour in the brief time still allotted to us.”

Alain de Botton, THE NEWS: A USER’S MANUAL, p.255.