coldhearted scientist وداد

…terror about extreme violence which my doing serious research and writing did at one time provoke. My irrational feeling is that I will keep life and limb together if I am not seen in process and if it doesn’t take time from other things. Coming up with offprints is fine, but one must not be seen to do the work. Most specifically, one must not get deeply into it because it is precisely that which provokes violence and if I am really giving my text my full attention I will not be watching my back.

I had already realized I was managing terror (not “being inefficient”) but I had not articulated the paradigm. I know the events and I understand their accretion but it is not the accretion which needs explaining or the events that need to be argued down or demystified. It is the image one holds that matters and to counter it, one must see it; now I do, and it is described above. It has been hovering above me for hours now, I knew it was forming and would be revealed soon, and there it is.

If I concentrate I will be invaded, run over and/or caught in the head with a heavy stick. It is a death scene. This is the image that comes over me like a cloud, a penumbra, and stops me from being able to think. I have seen the image before but only as a flashback, only a glimpse, on the way into a terror state. I have been able to describe the feeling but not just summon up the image for study, at least not in such a clear way.

But does this happen in the grocery store — in the public square — ? No, it is associated with academic work only, and with my field. I can do all sorts of other things and it does not come over me.

This is extremely interesting; I should do some sort of protection ritual and work on feng shui. It is exciting.

I think the image may have been forming since Wednesday or Thursday, when I started seeing some of my text fall into place.

Axé.