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Subway Diary

novalis
2 min readFeb 5, 2019

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Photo by Jaxon Gee-Dub on Unsplash

Today is the most called off day of work every year — the day after the Super Bowl. The subway seems pretty barren now. I suppose hangovers are being nursed across the city. I watched a few minutes at a bar last night while I was waiting for someone; I experienced no excitement, as it was not a good game. I remember being attached to football Sunday’s as a teenager; I remember living and dying with losses — and the blues that came with have to go to school. I do not envy that old self, who was too closely tethered to the life-rhythms of industrial society.

We can go whole days without seeing that precious thing: the light in the eyes of others.

Today I’m so busy, and so tired, that I feel absolutely blank, absolutely without the excess mental energy necessary for thought. I kind of like it; there is merit to this state of mind.

A Zen monk might ask: what is Subway Mind? What is the form of this emptiness? What is the emptiness of this form? The subway car, the vacant stares, flash of myriad screens, like shields…

I took the G train in the wrong direction this evening; walked the wrong way to work — have been completely absent-minded. My new play — a play I wrote, I mean, and am directing — opens on Thursday, and it occupies my thoughts completely. I actually wonder if I could go further in this direction: the direction of total devotion to a…

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