Yes, I Confess, I Think Only of Myself

But what else am I to think of? Am I not the privileged object of my observation? Is my mind not the only laboratory that I will ever have access to? Indeed, my mind is forever confined to this body, to these memories, to this path.

I have been at a bit of a crossroads in my writing. I've not been entirely sure where to go. I have about 22 pages of an essay on Clausewitz and narrative. I have several sections mapped out. I attempted to dig into it a little bit and I found myself struggling. I didn't have it in me to pour over that text like I have in the past. I think I'll finish it at some point. At the very least I intend to edit what has been done so far, clean it up, and present it as a self-contained object. What has been written so far could very well stand on it's own.

Lately my mind has been occupied by the prospect of another project, one that I haven't seriously thought about in a while. It would be something that would look like 'creative non-fiction' or 'philosophical journaling'.

My life has taken an interesting turn of late. I've started a new job. It's quite corporate, I must admit. I answer phones. I talk to people about their troubles with the internet, with a website, with their money. My contact with them is brief, specific, and purposeful. Yet I find that people often reveal themselves to me in serious ways. They betray things about their lives. They tell me their stories.

They tell me of their health troubles, their family dilemmas, the breakdowns of their marriages, the gradual separation of their families, the secrets their children don't know.

As I've grappled with my own story, the narrative arc of my own life, I've found that everyone has their own narrative arc, their own story that they are living and that they divulge by necessity.

I intend to reflect on the narrative reconfiguring that has been occupying my own time, and how part of my story has been these intimate encounters with these other people. I intend to tell you of myself as I tell you of them.