Staring Off Into Space

Sometimes, without even noticing it, I'll suddenly snap out of it, and realize that for the past few minutes, I've been staring at a random spot that nobody else can see, so deep in thought that I don't notice anything around me.

I do this a lot, actually. It's one of those things that you can't think about and do, but it happens when you least expect it, and suddenly you realize that you just missed an entire conversation, or a set of instructions given to you by your teacher. Inside my head, there's a whole other world, like a parallel universe, that I go and live in for a while, just thinking to myself. Life moves so fast, and sometimes we need a break to sit there and go over it slowly, even if it does mean missing an entire three minutes in which you could be learning, listening, or watching. It's not sleep, or dreams, which you can't always control. That's your subconscious, the darkest, deepest pits of your mind, only accessible in the dead of night, when you really close your eyes and succumb to the day. This is just skimming the top of that, giving you a break from life, and letting your mind take it where it wants to. When I was younger and trying to go to sleep, I would close my eyes and think of something, and then think of the next thing that popped into my head, like watching shapes morph in front of my eyes. While this might seem crazy to some of you, my dance teacher did the same thing a few years ago, having us start motions and then keep on going, turning it into whatever we thought of next. Apparently some little kids did this in school for writing and called it a brain-throw-up. I call it thinking.

If you're watching somebody stare off into space, if looks that he or she is asleep, dead to the world. As everyone knows, Gandalf sleeps with his eyes open, and of course it's possible that we're all really wizards and have short naps in the middle of the day, while it looks like we're really awake. If you do see anyone deep in thought, just spacing out, do not, do not, wave your hand in front of her face. That is the worst thing that can ever happen, worse than being woken up at the crack of dawn by an air horn in your ear. I have friends who will do that while I'm reading a book, because apparently I was reading so intently that they thought I was just lost in thought. Again.

I rather like that term, though. Lost in thought. It's more mysterious than lost in space, which either makes me think of the show or that robot from Futurama literally floating around in space. It's more specific than lost in time, which is like a penny that sits on the sidewalk for decades and never gets used. Thoughts are like a black hole, infinite and all unexplored. When you think about it (thinking again), you're the only one, in the entire world, who knows what you think. Just in that round part of your body near that top, in that mushy organ, you can have stories, emotions, conversations, knowledge, and images hidden, waiting to be uncovered, but only by you. Am I the only one who finds that fascinating? Of course, with all of the writing I've been doing on here lately, I've kind of appointed myself to analyze every aspect of life I can think about. Just doing this can lead you on all sorts of roads in your own head, trying to figure things out and meeting dead ends, or tying knots. I've probably created numerous paradoxes by accident, or discovered them, just trying to find the answers. See what I mean about being deep in thought? It's like an abyss, and we can never reach the end. It will only get deeper.