Truce

What occupies the space in your head?
Think about it for a moment.
How would you measure the contents of your mind?
What about feelings and thoughts fighting each other in there, and, who knows, maybe the left and the right side of your brain?
Could it be true that the two sides of your brain, tormented by constant contrasting thoughts and feelings, while combatting each other fiercely, eventually come to a truce?

There could be different types of truces, you know, and if you think about it, it will soon be clear to you which truce applies to you, because if you're still alive and not on the verge of suicide or about to kill another human being, there's bound to be a truce. There could be that sane truce that leads you to live a calm and balanced life. There could be the truce of chaos that will not allow you to think but only to do, to move, and never stop (some people are so addicted to this state that they resort to cocaine).

But not you, right? Your mind, so occupied in useless thoughts that are apparently very valid to you, has reached such a truce that it forces your body to stop moving. Your mind commands your eyes to stare at the clock without seeing what time it is. It commands you to stare as if there were only a void. It commands you to lay down and wish you could sleep forever. It commands you to have to think for an hour whether you should get up and take a shower or not. In the end you do, reluctantly. After a while you dress and go outside.

You walk, tentatively, and look around. It's cold and windy. People stare and you stare right through them. You know they probably think you're normal. But you know you're not. You sit down in a bar and read a book, drink some wine. You think, you could do this at home, of course, but you sometimes force yourself to act as if you were mingling. You put down the book and look around. Everyone is chatting, discussing, laughing, whispering and you are just observing,

always observing.

You know that you indeed accept this state of mind as a truce, but it's the wrong word for it.

It's war.

(LB)