Filament.

Those of us who are detached from reality spend our lives searching for the seat on which to sit as the madness unfolds around us.

A seat high above the world, where we can observe the random, haphazard flood of tiny human insects in their billions. I compare their incoherent scurrying from nowhere to nowhere with the propagation of thoughts in my own broken mind.

These are thoughts with no particular purpose, of indefinite origin, which fade to a trace before I get the chance to write them down: it is this way because, until now, I never found my own cogito, the headwind of cogito, ergo, sum, the think in thinking being.

Cogito, ergo, sum asserts: as long as I think, I exist. Oh, for such certainty to govern everything else! I have longed for the seam of predictability which asserts: 'today will be bearable because....,' or worse still 'today will be disastrous because....' I can cope with disaster and misfortune, as long as I'm aware in advance of what's coming.

Then in a flash of realisation, it all became clear. There is indeed one thing upon which I can perpetually rely, and it provides such a comprehensive explanation for so many ills that I fail to see how it can possibly be wrong.

I can count, without fail, on the small filament of self-doubt which shines inevitably within me: it has been there as long as I have. It asserts the prevalence of my own insignificance, persistently pushing the idea to the foreground.

Now I am aware that the one piece of comfort I wished so hard for has been here all the time. It explains the reluctance on my part to embrace happiness, for happiness (in its absolute, perfect and selfish sense) results in the extinguishing of that compass which I use to guide my way.

I stand on my own shoulders, and cast a suspicious eye on the war thousands of metres below. Solitary and half-mad, I resigned from it years ago. Society isn’t for the likes of your author, and now I know why.