Check It Out

I finally got it. I was finally able to check out The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat (by Oliver Sacks) from my local library. I've had it for over a full week now. In that time, I've barely read more than the preface.

I've been waiting for this for a long time now. Weeks. Months, really. Every time I went on the library catalog system, it would just say it was "Out". I was slowly going crazy, not just with anticipation, but with frustration! I becoming convinced that it must have been well overdue, and I would likely never actually see it. The continued denial created an irrational desire within me. I recognized this fact and accepted the situation. Though, I suppose it would be more appropriate to say that I just gave up, and resigned myself to placing a hold on the book at some point in the future.

Shortly thereafter, the book became available.

Sometimes I get the feeling that the universe has a sick sense of humor. This is one of those times.

I don't feel victorious. I don't feel as if I have accomplished something, anything. Really, I just feel hollow inside.

Back in August, I wrote about the hazards of obsessive thinking. One of the best examples I can think of would be Moby Dick (by Herman Melville). In it, Captain Ahab is obsessed with hunting down the titular whale, a whale he had tangled with before. And how does that end for him?

Okay, spoilers for the end of Moby Dick ahead. You have been warned. If you want to find out the ending on your own, you should go do that now. I'll wait...

And you're back (or you never left in the first place).

They finally do meet up with Moby Dick, and it goes very badly for the crew of the Pequod. The ship is smashed to bits, all the crew (with the exception of Ishmael) drowns, Captain Ahab gets tangled up in some ropes and is dragged under the waves, and the only person who lives to tell the tale is Ishmael, who survives pretty much entirely by luck, and is left clinging desperately to a piece of wreckage (which serves him as a flotation device).

But then what?

Without something to drive a person forward, they become little more than an ambulatory bag of meat slowly shuffling towards death. At least, that's how I feel now.

Sometimes, it just all seems so pointless.