One that made me feel especially uneasy was how, in the absence of stimulation, I instinctively looked for distractions to occupy my attention. Forced to remove the seeds of a strawberry with a pair of tweezers or read Wikipedia articles related to rope, I found myself looking for something, anything to do: a mess to clean, a device to pick up—any pacifier that would distract me from the thoughts in my head. If I had been able to administer myself an electric shock in that moment, I might have done it. Our mind is accustomed to constant stimulation and tends to seek it as if it were a
...more
