a sCHOPENHAURIAN nIGHT tERROR*

Turn on the light, turn off the light, repeat until the effect is affected. There is no affect, all actions, thoughts and volitions are effects without a cause, a causeless effect. There is no causation, just reification, a going over again of the same action, thought, idea until the anxiety abates, which it seldom does {ever}. I am a non-causal repeating machine, a Turing instrument that never runs out of paper or divot cards. I am syphilitic with this merciless counting, checking, rechecking and rechecking what has been rechecked. My life, my day-to-day life, is lived in a posterior, I must calculate and assess, reckon and weigh out, check to see that the first action, the first salvo, is done correctly, done a posterior, in advance of the action or thought, or idea or occultation that started the idea, thought, notion, a salvo a posterior of the a posterior. In this manner my day-to-day life is a transcendence of transcendence, a Kantian first principle, a categorical imperative without a cause, causeless effect that is neither volitional nor wilful. In Schopenhauerian terms I am a pure act of willessness. I have no hand in what I do, no control over the rituals and compulsions, the need to repeat ad nausea until the feeling is right, the number reach, the integer valued and rescinded. Even this, the act of writing, is a painful reminder of my lack of control, hitting the tab, shifting, enter, delete, enter, tab, shift, hitting, tabbing, an action without a cause, a Schopenhauerian night terror, a Kantian last principle.