Caleb Hara

Created February 16, 2023 as an emulation of Rousseau’s Reveries of a Solitary Walker for Explorations in Romanticism

Let it be known that the following was a vain attempt to coax my mind back to a state of activity. Let it be known that “let it be known” is a reflection of my recent penchant for short, demanding statements that engulf a vast potential without any context. Exit the planet left. Pack a toothbrush. Throw an astrolabe into a tiger’s mouth. Scrape the pan. I enjoy them for their succinctness, and their efficacy, but understand that they are also probably an indication of my declining mental capability. As my thoughts grow shorter, so too do my expressions of those thoughts. Hence, the coaxing.

It’s a peculiar thing, thinking for the sake of thinking. It is an activity that can either bear the ripest of fruits, or leave you with a barren tree. I set out on a walk earlier this evening with the latter possibility in mind, but hoping that some success would be had in an attempt nonetheless. My objective, was to jumpstart my brain back to a state of proper use. It’s been subsisting on an intravenous tube of constant stimuli for quite some time. It was my hope that a reconnection with nature’s solitude might bring me back to life. So, I grabbed my best coat, and pilgrimaged the pathway beside the lake.

The path was glistening in the moonlight because of its dampness, without being too slippery to impede traction. The clouds were in the process of migrating south, and could only be seen from a distance. The foliage and shrubbery lay dead, but whispered from the grave to those who walked along the path. Each gentle gust of wind pressed words out of the cemetery surrounding me, in a language that I couldn’t understand. These were big words, conveying long-form thoughts. Try as I might have to grasp their meaning, my brain would lose track of each sentiment long before it had finished.

Not many others chose to brave the pathways that night as I did. Even in my hazy recollection, I felt they were few enough to count. Two couples, one pair of middle-aged wine-addled friends, and a trim man walking his Golden Retriever. There of course, could have been others, but they would have gone completely amiss by me if I was in a state of self-containment. The mind has a tendency to wander on a walk, in a way that will eliminate the details of a person’s surroundings. You’d think that this would make it a perfect activity for thinking, but it’s only when those thoughts aren’t intended to be deliberate. Oftentimes they don’t even register as thoughts as they materialize, in a manner no different to the lack of concentration that goes into moving your feet. The only difference, is that one’s feet are rarely directionless, and my mind didn’t seem to know where it wanted to go.

I tried at several points to reverse this effect artificially, one thought at a time. Pick a subject, entertain the subject, lose the subject, repeat. Like a muscle unable to lift a weight it once could, my mind repeatedly faltered. I suppose that the very act of trying to force a coherent string of thoughts together counts as a form of exercise, but exercise rarely yields results on the first day. If I wanted to truly break free of my mental stagnancy, I was going to have to make my change into a regular practice. Throw your phone away. My meddlesome mind wouldn’t be able to handle returning to a house that has it inside. I knew that if I were to have it again, it would reclaim my mind in an instant.

At some point I reached a cliff surrounded by breakers, and sat at a bench near the overhang. My efforts to manufacture activity in my mind had only resulted in mental fatigue, meaning that I was back to aimlessly drifting through whatever my imagination imparted onto my surroundings. There at the precipice, the line between where my creation began and Gaia’s creation ended was obliterated. The water before me seemed endless, save where it cusped at the horizon. Just above that line the moon cast down a beam of scalding white, extending all the way to the shore. So bright was this beam, that the water couldn’t be seen rippling beneath it. A ramp of energy solid enough to walk upon, like a monolith extending up to the heavens. Walk off the earth.

If I had been of a sharper mind, I might have slid down the precipice. I might have walked out past the shore, and began strolling across the moon’s bridge towards a place made only of thought. There, I could relish the spoils of an active mind. Not here. Let it be known that this, is where I decided to promptly end my walk. Let it be known that this is when I gave up on thinking all together.