Tunnel of Boredom

I find myself in my room as motionless as a man can be, who is completely and emptily restless, utterly hollow. I have done all the work I want to do--and now there is nothing. I could go out, travel down town on the subway, run to town. But I do not want to go down town, I do not want to run to town, I don't want to do anything. I am suspended motionless, in an agony of inertia, like a machine that is without power.

This is very bitter to me, who had never known what boredom was, who had gone from activity to activity, never at a loss. Now, gradually, everything seems to be stopping in me. I do not want any more to do the things that offer. Something dead within me just refuses to respond to any suggestion. I cast over in my mind, what it would be possible to do, to save myself from this misery of nothingness, relieve the stress of this hollowness. And there are only three things left, that would rouse me, make me live. One is to drink a beer, the other is to be soothed by a friend, and the third is women. And there is no one for the moment to drink with. Nor is there a woman. And I have no friends. So there is nothing to do but to bear the stress of my own emptiness.