I Just Need One More Idea

I really don’t want to say this, but last night I was in a desperate search of an idea to tie several experiences and thoughts together with certain degree of coherence. I didn’t think there was a real cohesion in it but an semblance of it was essential. Yes, the more one doesn’t have it, the more one needs to build up the appearance of having it, at least in this case. I remember I read this story long time ago, either by a Russian writer or a Japanese writer. I can’t remember the plot of the story or the author anymore. However I remember this part of the story: a poor young man has only one coat for the winter, and this coat is torn at the pocket area and is mended in a way that cannot hide the rip mark. So the poor young man cannot get his mind off his coat and its imperfection–now pretending to be wearing a good untorn coat becomes a matter of obsession for him. Isn’t it similar to what I was trying to do?

At one point last night I started to feel a sense of despair that I would not be able to finish this project with a sense of satisfaction. I even started to flash back to my childhood when I was a serious disappointment to my parents who dreamed of having a pretty, docile girl, but instead they had me, who was sour, grudging and sulky, just like my narcissistic parents–well, bitter apples don’t fall far away from a bitter tree.

I could imagine me hitting my head repeatedly against a brick wall, trying to make a breakthrough but not able to. I could even imagine the blood and the smell of it. I wished that the gory picture could bring some ideas to me, but nothing.

So I went to bed with a sense of doom. Well, the project was doomed, I thought. Probably the arrival of WWIII would save me from feeling bad about this project. Obviously that was a morbid piece of wishful thinking that I should not dwell on. Furthermore, nothing has ever happened in this world for my convenience and nothing will in the future. Being a woman and an immigrant, I should have known that.

So I started to prepare a long speech in my mind to explain to others why I failed, and why I should still be considered a good girl, a diligent woman, a competent person despite this failure of mine. I would stress my struggle in an effort to gain sympathy. Well, if all fails, I can blame English. I can imagine myself saying, “English is not my native tongue and it is a very strange language. It emphasizes on coherence at the expense of a truthful presentation of the messy world we live in. Don’t you think? If you want to present the world as it is, it has to be disorganized, right?” I fell asleep.

This morning, when I got up, an idea came up. I realized that the person’s emotional trajectory, or intellectual progress, or the evolution of his thoughts could be used to string everything together. It sounded so easy that I felt ashamed that I had not come up with this idea before.

This is really something I want to be thankful for. I can eat my Thanksgiving meal without torturing myself on ideas–or the lack of ideas.

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Image by Dani Géza from Pixabay