To be honest, the world of the computer is very similar to the world of the Unconscious, with lots of hidden elements and a language to decipher. I probably feel like there’s nowhere left to go when it comes to investigating my Unconscious; the computer also involves much less risk, or risk of a different kind.

The strangest thing about all this is the value I ascribe to investigating something that is, quite definitely, of no use to me whatsoever. And yet I clearly do see it as immensely valuable, as if there were vitally important clues hidden in the workings of the machine. (Once again I got distracted by the topic and paid no attention to forming the letters properly, or to the size of my writing.)

October 26

Over the past few days spring has sprung, or rather it’s loudly announced its presence all over the place. Our garden is teeming with plants we didn’t plant; they’re popping up everywhere, apparently of their own volition or because the soil itself is feeling inspired. They develop quickly, getting bigger by the day and making themselves very much at home. There’s a proliferation of insects and feverish activity among the ants. In the street the girls are blossoming too, their breasts seeming to awaken and press keenly against light fabrics that barely conceal them. They look around boldly, their eyes full of life and the pleasure of living.

My own personal spring primarily involves taking high doses of psychiatric medication in a (futile) attempt to control the usual anxiety running through my veins. The seasons are all the same in this house, each as depressingly oppressive as the last. A big invisible clock marks the same time for every day, every month, every year; it marks the rhythm of the blood in the veins, the beating of the heart, the forbidden desires, forbidden but sometimes—if the clock allows it—permitted in dribs and drabs. Life, with its own logic, its own hungers and needs, is going on somewhere, but not here. Here, all that goes on is the prisoner’s unproductive solitude, the inner chill that summer will never dispel. Time doesn’t run alongside us and we don’t know how to play with it; time is nothing but a murderer, slow but sure, watching mockingly from behind its scythe as it lets us go on enjoying—in manageable portions—the cold that awaits us in the tomb that bears our name.

October 27

I’ll make an effort to avoid interesting topics today so I can get better at forming the letters, which I’ve almost completely forgotten about doing. What can I write that won’t be so interesting that it distracts me from my purpose and at the same time won’t be so mind-numbingly dull that I wander off, yawning expansively, and leave the work half-done?