DE-stimulate

Alexia PdC

23 Aug 2025 — 1 min read

(transitive) To bring out of a state of stimulation

I live in a noisy city. I live in a noisy home, with a noisy building site next door, for however long that takes. We live in times of over-stimulation. Our senses are deliberately engineered with too-much-input-at-all-times; it takes a massive mammoth to stop the overflow.

The summer has been too hot and the school holidays are ringing in my ears. The swimming pool is no longer a place of rest and respite. The parks are heaving with lovely games and running and shouting and and and and and

I need it all to stop

Acts of destimulation are hard to find when you reach the burnout bit. Burnt out life is where everything that touches your ears and brain physically hurts, and the sonic receptors are on strike action along with the bin collectors.

The politicians are lying harder and faster, the grass is as dry as their hearts.

I wait for signs of the overload to stop, for a minute, but it cannot. Will not. The world is on fire from centuries of entangled European Empire and the aching wounds are quite rightly screaming. We do not want to look away. We do need some rest.

To be rested is to be restored is to be capable is to have the capacity to resist their disgusting norms.

I reach for the earplugs. I snooze in the afternoons.

Where are the words

When the air is wet and your hands are cold in your room Called to be in hibernation for three to four months The system denies that mammalian softness, as it tears all of us from our natural needs A candle burning on the slate hearth of my rented room

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Maltese musings

A few short thoughts from the archipelago that is Malta. I had a good time, would recommend esp for spoonie rest. Malta, a place of many empires meeting melting mouthing “we were here, too” The British were last, carving out there ‘politeness’ into the limestone Mdina – Arabic for city – was

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Where are the words

A letter from the empire to himself

Hold the pose

Maltese musings