Anxiety and Compulsion in Note-taking
It seems I have an irrational tendency to record and organize everything into written notes, which leaves me with a heaviness in my chest because I can’t shake off the feeling that something is amiss. This compels me to spend at least two hours every day sorting through what I’ve written before or writing new stuff, regardless of whether it’s meaningful or not. The more I write, the harder it becomes to organize, leading to increasing anxiety, which serves as my way to alleviate this anxiety and keep going.
The primary reason for spending so much time organizing is that such tasks take away from the time I could otherwise dedicate to engaging with new works of art. Moreover, I often find myself unable or unwilling to revisit my past writings, even flipping through them occasionally feels overwhelming. Large stretches of text evoke a sense of wanting to capture every moment in words, accompanied by the mental agony of time passing and thoughts racing. Additionally, as someone who meticulously practices rote memorizationno matter how trivial I feel about itI find myself wasting valuable time revisiting my past notes, which now feels like a pointless act akin to suicide.
A simple analogy would be that the time I spend writing could have been spent watching a movie instead of sifting through endless notes. If I chose to allocate that time to watch movies or other forms of entertainment, would I still feel as frustrated and procrastinated about reading books? Furthermore, whenever I encounter those chaotic, disordered texts, they cause me physical pain. I loath disorder in its many formswhether it’s messy ideas, half-baked thoughts, or jumbled words. But modern life is inherently chaotic; we’re constantly bombarded with information and forced to conform to societal norms that don’t suit our needs. There’s no escaping this fundamental contradiction, which leaves me perpetually anxious. The more anxious I feel, the more compelled I become to writeoften writing nonsense because my anxiety grows when I realize how little time I actually have.
Why am I so fixated on organizing? In all honesty, I believe it’s impossible to capture and sell one’s entire self as a cohesive entity for sale. My lack of such cohesion is proof enough of this illogical notion. I deeply admire the comprehensive nature of Song Jiang Zai, a poet whose talents are unmatched by others. Yet I feel my life in the information age is fragmentedevery change that occurs to me seems directly related to myself, but because I can’t unify everything into an integrated whole, I’m often overwhelmed with details and ideas scattered all over the place. This issue stems from the inherent flaws of modernity as well as perhaps a flaw in my aesthetic sensibilities.
In summary, I should create new things rather than focus on organizing or ruminating. Let these half-baked thoughts remain chaotic. Stop thinking about this now; it only brings monotony and boredom to mind. To break free from the compulsion of any substancewhether positive or negativeyou must rid yourself of thoughts about it entirely, which would eliminate its presence in your mind.
