03.07.2023 Yesterday

For most of yesterday morning and noon I was brought down by the meaninglessness of life. I was slightly lonely, unmotivated but knowing I theoretically had work to do (if only that work would be actually significant), a bit nostalgic for the time when I could study for 8-10 hours per day regularly, for how “easy” things were back then (at least in the case of finding some reason to do anything), and I missed M.. I decided to go on a walk in the park. All these feelings continued during said walk, which was only supposed to last for a maximum of thirty minutes. It ended up being an hour and a half. My mind spent most of that time jumping from one inconsequential thought to the next, and that’s how I experienced it / how I felt: inconsequential. I knew nothing mattered, and I didn’t have the base energy to reinstate my illusions of meaning in that time. I eventually ended up at a spot I had never been to before in the park. A small rock at the edge of a bend in the river, isolated from the rest of the park by bushes and tall grass. If I had not walked through the city to get there I would have guessed I was somewhere out in the country. It meant nothing. There was a distinct absence of meaning in that place in that moment. But importantly, there was also an absence of the usual things I know I have to pretend are meaningful to live “productively”. No computer, no roads leading to “important/(civilized)” places, no people, nothing. This lifted my mood a bit. I simply sat and was nothing. I was completely alone in that moment, and I enjoyed it. For no reason. Then I got up, and started walking home. At about the halfway point there’s a bridge over the river. As I walked over it, “one year has passed (look at all we’ve been through)” started playing in my headphones. And I surrendered to my nostalgia. I stopped walking and stood looking over the river, listening and thinking. I thought of my time in Freising, of M.. I thought of when I sent M. “one year has passed” and how M. responded. I knew it was useless, meaningless. But I didn’t care. It felt alive. The beauty of my illusions was returning to me. But it did not reach the point of ecstasy. It was a calm return to meaningful absurdity. I finished walking back home.