“Of course I had read that eventually you wind up losing track of time in prison. But it hadn’t meant much to me when I’d read it. I hadn’t understood how days could be both long and short at the same time: long to live through, maybe, but so drawn out that they ended up flowing into one another. They lost their names. Only the words “yesterday” and “tomorrow “ still had any meanings for me.

One day when the guard told me that I’d been in for five months, I believed it, but I didn’t understand it. For me it was one and the same unending day that was unfolding in my cell and the same thing I was trying to do.”

Oof, I felt this quote so hard. As someone that has worked longer than I haven’t worked this quote encapsulates how it feels to lose yourself in the capitalistic grind.

Especially since I work 6 days a week, 7-9 hour long days. It feels like each day is just centered around nothing but work, and I too, have recently realized that 5 months have come and gone (literally, the timing in which I read this LMAO 😭). When you’re doing something for work that isn’t your true passion, it truly becomes a prison.

That’s what’s made this a bit of a difficult read for me in the beginning (I read 10 pages months ago before truly logging it here), especially given how detached Meursault is from everyone and everything.