The year is rushing to an end, he thought

The year is rushing to an end, he thought as he sat at the same desk and looked out of the same window, where he sat last year looking out of the same window, near the same window sill. He had thought the same thoughts last year too, as it had rushed to who knows where, when he had looked out the same window, sitting at the same desk. It is not possible to think new thoughts, he thought as he tried to look back at the year rushing to a fresh debacle, there is nothing new that can enter his mind now, his prejudices so solid, his lack of a sense of adventure now so fixed. These thoughts are the same thoughts that he has thought in the past and have lead him nowhere, even as this year rushes to who knows where, he thought. I am incapable of cracking it, he thought and understanding how it all works, he realized. In the past this had lead to a quiet shame but now he seemed to be vaguely proud of it, in a wayward haphazard sort of way. All this seething and running, this seething against running, this running away from seething, this made him doubt everything that he had read and learnt from reading but he was incapable of stopping this seething and running, he thought. It had always been like this, this thought that the year was rushing to an end at the end of an year though basically everything stayed the same, only the month changed and a new numeral was added, the dates changed. Nothing in essence changed he thought, even if the year rushed to an end, even if he thought these thoughts as the year rushed to an end, at the same desk and looking out the same window.

He was so incapable of knowing what he knew or to communicate it or shout it loud and he realized, as he thought this thought, that he was not able to know his own feelings let alone the feelings of others, so how could he know what he thought he knew when he did not know what he actually wanted. A sad song occasionally made him cry and he resisted that, he thought that it should not be said aloud and a really melancholic moment was worth an entire year to him he thought so too. But this had not been learned this year, he knew it before the year started to rush to an end, before he began to think these thoughts sitting near the same window where he had sat the year before. Why does a song sadden him more than the sufferings of people, real people in Congo DR or Afghanistan, he asked himself. Should he also not have some real ambition, like accumulating money and buying and selling and shattering his heart and the hearts of others without one thought, one remorse, one pang, one shred of any doubt? He knew this was too loud and too shrill a thought anyway, how could he think of leaving anything and just run, just leave everything and rush as the year was rushing, rushing to who knows where, as he again reminded himself of what he should think, what he had actually decided to think. He always ended up in not thinking about the real things that he should think about and always ended up in thinking of why a sad song saddens him, not about Congo DR or Afghanistan.

The year is rushing to an end, he thought, looking out the same window as he had looked out last year and he thought of the books he had read in the months gone by, places visited, cached, monuments conquered, movies ticked off the movie list. Yet he had learned nothing, he did not even remember the books he had read this year, except The Devils, which he had re-read, and apart from a few great poems, he knew nothing new about the world. How could he know anything he thought when he did not know what is inside him, deep inside, what he actually wanted, what he really thought, what he really thinks of. Thoughts like these are tiring he thought, as he thought of the year rushing to an end, as he sat at the same desk and looked out the same window where he had thought the same thoughts last year, when last year had rushed to who knows where, as this year rushes to who knows where. He was not even sure how much he loved her or how badly he wanted to have his heart shattered out loud, how badly he wanted to spend an entire life listening to sad songs outside badly lit cheap cafes on badly lit cheap looking streets, how much did he want to be like The Idiot inside and behave like The Outsider outside. These are the same thoughts he had thought last year as the year had rushed to an end and these are the same thoughts as he sits near his window, the year rushing to who knows where.