#urbanproblems

Yesterday, this tiny plane brought my family and me to the Norwegian mountains.

I was convinced that eight days in comparable solitude were going to do wonders for this essay I’m trying to write. When you wake up at ten in the morning, however, and the light is still this blue, it becomes hard to wrap your mind around the things that, twelve hours ago, still seemed so important

.

The mountains, the snow, the darkness all suggest something that is strangely comforting but also a tiny bit terrifying: That maybe, all the observations you made, all the ideas that you thought begged to be written down are actually not at all relevant. To my sister, whose farm we’re staying at, they certainly aren’t. The problems one needs to tend to here are existential in a way that makes you feel very silly indeed for wondering (for example) about how theory affects the humanity of those who are obsessed with it. I will have to keep trying, because, in the end, deadlines are as real a thing as the snow storm that is supposed to hit the area tomorrow.