After having the virus, it does seem - as ongoing reports corroborate for others - that my brain has changed. And this has affected my thinking and writing habits.
This has had various counterbalancing effects, as those sudden and luminous visions and inspirations, and the accompanying ecstasy are gone, along with the motivating passions that helped things along, which has been replaced with unworkable fragments and jumbled ideas, and then at times a dead quiet, at least in the contemplative and artistic realm.
Though as I have mentioned before, this has also been accompanied with a vague and inexplicable drive to continue moving and laboring, and to spend more time outdoors working physically and with the hands - the direction I've wanted in the first place.
Every day I believe to be healing - which is not without its setbacks - and expect those inner visions and passions to eventually come back. But right now it is cruise control: I am still living off of notes and concepts sketched out months upon months ago, slowly refining and editing them when I have the time and energy.
This is one reason for the general ethic of preservation. Whether one has a notepad full of incomplete scrawlings or notes, or a root cellar full of pickled and canned vegetables, it all may appear as such a chaotic mess at first glance. Indeed, there are many different forms of hoards, and many of them are a waste of time and energy at best, and socially irresponsible and destructive at worst.
But then that hard fall, that traumatic illness, or that long hard winter comes along, and one lives off of the surplus for a time and burns it up, and suddenly such practices and collections make a bit more sense. Trying to figure out what preserving practices to make use of - and which neurotic attachments to dispense of - is an interesting question of its own.
