2026-01-12.3_meditations on overthinking and doing

whenever you express something, it makes it easier to bear.

this is true, but there are a few caveats. with some things, bearing them is not enough / just bearing them a little easier is not enough. this is compounded even further when you’re as intense of an overthinker as i am. and also, expression costs energy. and sometimes (often, recently) there is so much to bear that even expressing it becomes almost too much / tiring. also because it all seems to be going in circles / cycles.

and then the moment arises: during expression / reflection, the possibility of breaking (out of) the cycle comes into view, even if only ever so slightly. and you pause. this wasn’t supposed to happen, you were just trying to express what was burdening / occupying you, not more. so at first you switch topics, void knows you don’t have a lack of things / topics to express feelings about. but every time, at a certain point, that moment arises again. it asks you a ‘simple’ question: what will you do?
you don’t have an answer. you wish you did. but you don’t. a thousand answers speed through your mind every time the question is asked, many of them recurring, but none of them stay for long. this is chaos: things coming & going faster than your body can process. you don’t know what to do.
then, a slight variation of the question comes into view: what can you do? you don’t have an answer to this question immediately either, but it seems more doable to answer than the previous one, so you decide that trying to find answers to this question is what you will do.