I’m reading a book about a utopian society. There are no conflicts, no hunger, no disasters. There’s no death — it’s been conquered. Yet, there are people whose job is to end lives so that the size of human population is under control.

…and I feel immense anxiety of randomness of death. Of how being at the peak could mean that falling down would hurt even more.

Similarly, anything out there could tap into those uncomfortable thoughts — think: art, music, poetry, even conversations with other people — and make us face them. Make us mull over the unpleasantness of it all and why we feel the way we do.

(There are things we ought to accept. Maybe they are inevitable, or we cannot control them. But to engage with that thinking...?)

Do you squirm yet keep looking that sense of discomfort in the eyes, or say fuck it and choose to leave the situation altogether?

(All to say, I still have no idea whether to quit this book or keep reading.)

With love,

Mariia