The croupier

If I empty my days, my days should became empty... but actually it does not happen that way.

I think it is the croupier, the thing that is always giving cards, whatever there is available. Well, it is probably useful, a kind of mechanism to worry about things that are important, to remember that today you have to do this or that, an alarm system. The problem is that it does not relativize at all, any small issue can make me feel as worried or fearful as any huge problem.


There is a good example that happened in Belgium. I spent there a few days for some administrative stuff, anyway it was very good to meet my ex-colleagues and some old friends. One of them lent me his house; he does not live anymore, anyway the place is amazing, he basically built it with his own hands and the hands of some friends for I don't know how many years. It was really a special feeling staying there, sometimes emotional.

Anyway, one of the days I had to leave more or less early in the morning, just after the breakfast coffee, in a kind of hurry. I took the bicycle to get to the bus stop, and when I was on my way I realised that I had not double checked that everything was alright in the house before leaving. Not that anything was going to be wrong. I guessed the only thing was the burner for the coffee, and I thought about it and I remembered myself switching it off. So I did not go back to double check anything. The amazing thing was that at some parts of the day I got really anxious about it. Imagine: how do I let the house of my friend burn !!!!! I was really worried and at the same time so surprised about worrying, since it was pointless, since I knew that everything was ok, and it was just that thing I call the "croupier" checking on me again and again and again, playing with something pretty emotional like my friend's house.

In the evening when I was getting back riding my bike I was smelling smoke. I could not stop laughing at the nonsense of the sensation.


But then, I guess, sometimes you worry about something which is important, or sometimes you are not so sure that you've switched off the fire, or it is just something that does not depend on you, and in those situations the mechanism must be the same, coming back again and again to cause you pain, but not really helping so much on itself.

On the other hand I guess it is the same mechanism that allows you to remember that you have an appointment, or that you have to switch off fires of the kitchen, or whatever you need to take care of.

Funny thing that it seems impossible to stop, and that it will try to play with whatever cards are available. I'd say it is just the results of years and years with my "habit" of worrying so much about everything, and it will take me still some more time to relax the mechanism, (if it can ever be relaxed). On the other hand I'd also say that the only fact of knowing about it makes it by far less powerful.

I'm in Sicily now. So nice, so relaxed. And the cropier humorist keeps amusing me every day.