horsemouth urban worrier

thanks danny.

so here is horsemouth. he's not 'a free man in london... unfettered and alive' as he claimed but a beast persecuted by random anxieties. 

he is an urban worrier. (this is truer than people know)

he worries in the countryside too (but there is less to worry about there). 

he worries about the construction of his sentences. 

and then he worries that he doesn't look cheerful enough in the photos. 

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what relieves the worrying? 

walking and writing

during his chats with minty the topic of how reading has changed the human brain came up. literacy has benefits for sure but it also has some perceptual costs in terms of removing you from the present and your actual existence. 

(there's some discussion of what a strange activity reading is in a history of reading). 

this is what people really want. people do not wish to be stuck with boredom, they wish to be distracted from it. 

they do not wish to go through their boredom so as to emerge on the other side with self-directed activity. 

writing 

this seems to do it for horsemouth. as long as he can diarise the day he feels ok about it. and as he writes (or as he walks) something will occur to him. he is used to the idea that this will be available for others to read - it would seem strange to him to write not intending that people should read it. 

walking

similarly walking. as horsemouth walks often his mood evens out. he can walk for a mission - to find old historical things, to photograph nature, to find an open second hand bookshop on a sunday. (curiously even working out how far he has walked he finds therapeutic). 

that said he can just as easily get hung up with unproductive thoughts while he is walking, the reveries that rousseau speaks of (and not in a good sense). 

reading 

reading often does it as well. he is simply not present when he is reading and reading often generates things he wants to write about. often, sad to say, these days, he has to trick himself into reading. he doesn't read with the same attention he once did, he no longer has research projects of the type he once had when he was reading in order to write something other than a diary. 

ok he's off for 

a walk

his plan was to walk over to south woodford staying this side of the north circular and see if the charity shops were open. but the tracks in the forest were too muddy so he diverted to cross the road (down by where denise and jonny once lived) planning to loop round and back home. 

as he walked down the hill he remembered that rust and massumi lived near there and called in on them on the off-chance. and indeed they were in, a large meal was prepared as they were having friends round for a (delayed) birthday celebration. horsemouth had shown up completely by chance. 

he was invited in and stayed for a while. once again their friends were great and it was great to see them. 

but then he became anxious about being elsewhere later and headed back to the house (he really doesn't know when he has it good). he could have probably stayed out longer but he becomes anxious about becoming overtired. 

oh well. he was just sitting out in the back garden in the sun. (such things are now possible). 

the thing in the evening did not materialise but horsemouth has a mission planned for today so he is fine with it. the mission involves a journey to the end of the (northern) line.