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The Old Imperium, by John Crowley

The Old Imperium, by John Crowley

Section titled “The Old Imperium, by John Crowley”

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  • For me, ceasing to think can only mean ceasing to talk. I talk to myself constantly—that is, with myself as audience. I talk to others not present but who might be, and to others less specified; I explain myself in sentences, in a voice that’s mine, though my mouth and larynx and vocal cords don’t move (or maybe they do); I tell amusing stories I have told many times before, recount fun facts, expound wise thoughts, explain things that need no explaining, sometimes to a particular imagined listener, sometimes to vague stand-ins or to no one at all. I am actually dreadfully tired of this speaker. His speaking is not only repetitious and not as witty as he thinks, but if mindfulness helps a person to achieve stillness, to avoid errors and missteps in the world, this endless word production tends to cancel it out. Maybe at some future time I will notice that it has receded. I’m sure that at one future time it will stop for good. In the meantime, I have continued meditation more or less faithfully since I began. It was hard, until it got easy, and while the results are difficult to describe or assert, the insights I have gained are real to me. It hasn’t fixed whatever cognitive impairment my brain has suffered, nor much stilled the inner voice that does stand-up daylong, but it has changed how I experience the impairment and the voice: acceptance over struggle, which makes for changes in what I think and how I act. It seems fatuous or paradoxical to say that I can combat my loss of acuity by merely taking careful thought of what I must do. But that’s what I’m attempting and what I can only keep on at until I am lost in my ruins, and inadequacy and confusion win.