But I’ve just been interrupted by the phone. I answered it because I’m at home alone and thought it might be for me, but, as usual, it was for Alicia. These interruptions in my activities are all too common. Until now, I’ve almost always lived alone and interruption-free. These days I live with a woman, a child, a dog, and a cat (and a maid, who comes every morning from Monday to Saturday; now it’s a Sunday afternoon). The dog and the cat spend their time in the back garden and are fairly easygoing; any problems between them tend to arise at mealtimes. The dog has a far longer history in the house than the cat. The cat is a recent addition, mysterious, white-furred, and very guarded with his emotions, though very rash, or perhaps oblivious, when it comes to other kinds of danger. Ever since the arrival of the cat, the dog has been seized by jealousy.

Exercises

November 27

Allow me to record, so it’s known in the centuries to come, that I’m writing this at eight thirty in the morning. If we take into account the clocks going forward (a maneuver on the part of the government that I still don’t understand, though I’m sure it leaves them better off and us worse off), it’s 7:30 a.m. I’ve already had breakfast and now I’m drinking a cup of coffee. But my handwriting isn’t very good. Now it is. If I want my handwriting to be good, I can write only about my handwriting, which becomes very monotonous. But writing only about my handwriting keeps my mind on what I’m doing and means I form the letters properly. Otherwise, my attention drifts toward the discourse, and my hand ends up writing automatically, without any will to guide it.

The will: this is the crux of my current problem. I seem to have lost my willpower—which, by the way, I never had much of. Let’s think about this. The self is defined as the conscious, volitional part of the being—it’s a complex modern invention, since for millennia there was nothing among living beings that bore the slightest resemblance to a self. In other words, for the being it takes real effort, a significant consumption of mental energy, to maintain the existence of this unnatural, antinatural artifice. Well, I’m doing a good job of identifying my current problem of apathy, but not such a good job of paying attention to my handwriting—I got too excited about these psychological reflections, and now my hand’s moving mechanically, automatically, without a will to control it.

The Discourse

November 27