On Suspension of Disbelief, and the Lengths We'll Go to Get Some

I keep starting posts and not finishing posts, attempting to edit and polish them into something beautiful, then leaving them forgotten in "drafts" for months.

This isn't even a metaphor for my life. It is just my life.

So today I sat in bed in what felt like the wee hours but was, in fact, not (thanks, blackout curtains!), attempting to summon the courage to join the world.



The problem, I decided, as I am so prone to analyzing myself in the dark, barely awake, and sans caffeine, is this: my ability to paradigm shift and suspend belief is fucking broken. I've alluded to this before. But it's just... broken.

So I take a deep breath and look for any semblance of belief that I can create any change in the material world. My eyes are closed, not that it matters, but still. I am scanning my insides for any belief that my actions matter, that I am anything but helpless. And it's gone, along with my faith in humanity and the concept of joy. It's just... gone.

But utility! cries a small forgotten voice in the back of my head. Didn't we once believe it was *useful* to believe we could make a difference? Didn't we once believe that it was aesthetically preferable?

And, indeed, we did. This yielded a sort of latent, long-simmering optimism that lasted for many years. Because it didn't matter if it was true; what mattered was that it was pretty.

And another deep breath. And I close my eyes again. I scan the entirety of my consciousness for confidence in my ability to pretend to that I believe I can create any sort of change. To adopt a faux sense of purpose. I am looking for the tiniest bit of myself that believes I can pretend to give a shit.

And... nothing.

I flop back down on the bed. The cat, who is *not* fooled by the blackout curtains, is past ready for breakfast and certainly not amused.

But we're not done yet. Because I've seen too many "do they know that I know that they know that I know" skits, and as a child, I spent far too many hours tranced out, looking at the box of borax that showed a picture of a girl with a box of borax...

So I took a deep breath and asked myself, "can I pretend to believe that I believe that I can pretend to be an optimist?"*

And the answer welled up in me, suddenly. "fuck yeah. I can pretend all *kinds* of shit."

So I sat in bed a little more, reading some of my favorite Peter Carroll quotes, wrapping my head around where I'd arrived, and the irony of shifting into a paradigm that allows me to believe that paradigm shifting is possible again. "Indeed, linear extrapolations make no large-scale sense in a universe that has spatial and temporal curvature." Indeed.

So here's to fakery. Here's to pretending. Here's to my faith in my own ability to change my mind. Here's to claiming that, for now, as a core part of my identity. I may not believe I can do anything else, but I believe I can make myself believe that I believe pretty much anything.



*did reading that give you a headache? It's OK. Me too.