Dept. of Speculation

by Jenny Offill

For years, I kept a Post-it note above my desk. WORK NOT LOVE! was what it said. It seemed a sturdier kind of happiness. I found a book called Thriving Not Surviving in a box on the street. I stood there, flipping through it, unwilling to commit. You think that the mental anguish you are experiencing is a permanent condition, but for the vast majority of people it is only a temporary state. (But what if I’m special? What if I’m in the minority?)

The Buddhists say there are 121 states of consciousness. Of these, only three involve misery or suffering. Most of us spend our time moving back and forth between these three.

I was thinking about what it would be like to live somewhere so beautiful. Would it fix my brain?

I never liked to hear the doorbell ring. None of the people I liked ever turned up that way.

Attention without object is a supreme form of prayer.

A thought experiment courtesy of the Stoics. If you are tired of everything you possess, imagine that you have lost all these things.

The only love that feels like love is the doomed kind. (Fun fact.)

She thinks before she acts. Or more properly, she thinks instead of acts. A character flaw, not a virtue.