I don't much care to link together the smattering of thoughts in my head, but in desiring to do anything but write, I have created a Dilemma in which I must do just so, lest I look back in years and regret. Or, more nightmarish I think, to not recall enough to regret.

This creates for me also, quite unexpectedly, an Opportunity, as the night before this I lay awake and thought of regret. This links last night to this night, and indeed it may seem to me as one continuous night if I shift very carefully, as a car rolling downhill might shift into gear and thus powered, soar. Well, not soar. It's a car.

Being freshly showered, I have yet to put on any clothing, making it difficult to wander off to find some other business to distract me, as none would have me as I stand so lacking in attire.

Only my family is present, that I am aware of, and I must respect that ancient code that dictates parents and children must take great pains not to remind the other of their inevitable sexualities. One of the greater illusions I've encountered, and one that puzzles me. But I shall respect it for now, and not wander to the kitchen for the green-green grapes that I know hide in the refrigerator.

So last night, or this night (depending on how things go), I thought of those people that strive to live without regret. This puzzles me also. It could very well be another Great Illusion, as likely as a life with no scars. Possible, certainly. But what manner of life would that be?

Regrets are the fables of memory, the grim fairy tale that would have saved you that time you became lost in the woods, had you known it then. Can we be so certain that we will never find ourselves again?

The house of my memory is strongest where the regrets are the brick and resolutions the mortar. Should I wander again into that Black Forest, memory shall armor me.

It is only of use, this a-regretful philosophy, to those about to knowingly engage in actions that will likely bring regret. Paradox, certainly, as regret must be empowered as real in order to dismiss it. It is similar to the act of ignoring a person; to properly do so one must pay them the greatest attention. To soldier on under the banner of No Regrets and expect it to act as a shield is puzzling.

To deny regret is one of the temporary delusions we use to up a warped mirror where there might be a window.

I suppose that is all my thoughts on regret at this time, as it is all I have written on the whiteboard I now keep beside my mattress on the floor. Lying awake is a dangerous time, as Notions dart out and taunt me like mice might an over-fed house cat.

Often I ignore them and feign great dignity in my task of trying to sleep. Yet at times I wish I were a bit faster, a bit leaner, that I might catch them somehow and not accept the quilted prison of my weakness.

So I got a whiteboard and a dry-erase marker. A quick flick of the lamp and I can blearily scrawl whatever squirming idea I've snagged by the tail. If, the next day, I can read what I've written, a Borderlander is my reward.

That is what I have named them, the Borderlander Thoughts. In the great divide of our consciousness (if the divide is a Real Thing and not another minor Illusion that merely helps pass the time) there is strange gravity. Thoughts are in transit, from conscious to unconscious, or from Awareness to Unawareness which I have just now decided to call Being. So, we have Awareness which is what we seem to be doing right now, and Being, a time in which we our existence doesn't stop but no matter how much my arm is twisted, I couldn't really say what I was doing.

We hate that, I think. The not knowing. It's almost as if whatever this quality is, it isn't necessary. As any drunk knows, just because you don't remember doesn't mean you weren't walking and talking and perhaps making a fool of yourself.

Life on the Borderlands. Of course, it is a place marked by transition and any thoughts, or notions, or gelatinous glob of feeling and images, cannot be found on the border for long. As they cross one way, to Awareness, perhaps they keep their unique shape, or perhaps they join some greater thought or conceit in our waking life. As they cross the other way, into our Un-awareness (or Being) the thought may toss about, gathering layers like a hailstone in the wind, and thus grow mighty for another attempt across. Or, to lean into the wind of my biology training, the microscopic thought, unspent, will be broken down to its basics and re-absorbed, like sperm that never makes it past the epididymis.

There is more on the whiteboard tonight, some half-thoughts about how I would hold a conversation if I were blind. I don't remember writing that. Wait, yes, now I do. Because I wrote it in the dark.

Funny, my handwriting is slightly more legible when I cannot see.

Looking back, I appear to have resolved my Dilemma and written through this sloth. A bit rambling perhaps, but such is the nature of my mind during a continuous night.

Maybe I will wander over to the kitchen now. In fact, I am sure I will.