Projects

I have many projects, all of them idiotic. I keep busy, I think up projects, but all of them are idiotic, I know that. I am idiot, I am reconciled to that and my projects are idiotic, do you think I don’t know that? But still, it’s better to have projects than to do nothing at all, that’s for sure. Better projects than the absence of projects, the twiddling of thumbs, the passing of time. Better projects and not idleness.

Do something, that’s what I always tell myself, hence my projects. Do something, begin something, it’s better than sitting around doing nothing, that’s what I tell myself, and come up with my projects. Every morning, lying in bed, I think of my projects. I turn them over in my head – what shall I do today? what does today hold? In the morning, first thing, I think lovingly of my projects – I will do this – and then that. This, and then that: not one project, nor even two projects, but many projects. The projects of an idiot, it is true, but projects nonetheless.

They told me I was good for nothing, and they’re probably right, but even an idiot can have projects, I’ve proved that. An idiot’s projects – in the plural. If one goes wrong, there are others. If one project fails, there are others which may succeed. Of course I know they will all fail, one by one. I know it, I’m reconciled to it, I’ve lived long enough to know what I can do and what I can’t do. What I can do: nothing. What I can’t do: everything.

But still, projects – still there are projects, still I can keep myself busy and let the days turn. Still I can get on with my projects, I can get out of bed, having thought about them and then begin one project or another as the mood takes me. One project – another, I can drop one and start another, I can try to do two at once, one and another, but what’s important is that I’m active, important: my non-idleness, my preparedness to do something, to make something of myself. Of course I know I am making nothing of myself, that I’m wasting today as I waste every day, but there is always the illusion of progress, and I am happy with illusion.

It’s important to begin, I tell myself. Important, too, to finish, but first of all to begin, albeit with the hope of finishing, with the hope of completion bound up with it from the first, but there is the beginning first of all, the head of the waters, shining and splendid at the outset of the day.