knowing about knowing and when to sleep in

i lie in bed with no intention of getting up. this is my day of nothing. a day i've been craving.

last night, around 8pm, i sent my chapter to supervisors. it's the first complete chapter draft. all paragraphs (no notes) and all structured. i'm a bit satisfied, though was wondering if it would send me over the edge. weeks of whole days working on a single argument is not good for my sanity. at times i felt that everything i ever knew fell away, had to be pushed out of me, so that my attention could be specific, and this beast could be conquered. i spent all those hours with all those words. even when i moved away it was there, like a virus. the shower was a site of realisations of things missing and connections to make, and i would have to make mental notes, constructing numbered lists to write down once i could. all-consuming and not very fun. music was my only vice, though this changed too, and i started hearing lyrics of metaphors of madness. i discovered Of Montreal. brilliant stuff. but then (having learnt to doubt my every thought), i wondered, 'were they?' so i listened to them repeatedly to make sure. perhaps mirroring other repetitious habits. the song below will always be linked to 'the production of knowledges around young people's sexual health'.

i need to not think about it for a week, yet here i am, thinking about it. i need to ease myself off this.

though it's good now and as said, i'm a bit satisfied. i ended up (as usual) writing something different to what i set out to say. i found myself saying that the production of knowledge is an always collaborative affair, therefore, health work that seeks to improve young people's knowledge levels of sexual health is questionable. because how much do they need to know? their health is not entirely theirs, and nor is knowledge. as per Lyotard, knowledge is more about competence, less about learning and reciting facts. knowledge is not exterior to practice, and intensifies around events such as STI diagnoses, which require multiple agents and relations of trust. as a collaboration, sexual health involves the individual, yet far exceeds her and her knowledge. but knowledge is never static, as much health work seems to suggest. its movement can be seen in the shifting statements that science and health have made over the years. 'what sex does' is always shifting ground. all knowledge, like any good infection, constantly mutates.

anyway, the soundtrack: