/ˈkɑn(t)sənˌtreɪt/
verb
1630s, "to bring or come to a common center," from concenter (1590s), from Italian concentrare, from assimilated form of Latin com "with, together" (see con-) + centrum "center" (see center (n.)). etymonline
You sit at your desk. It’s midterm season. You have two overdue problem sets, four new ones due this week, an exam in three days, and an essay to submit before midnight. And you cannot concentrate.
Your brain must have dissipated, slowly but surely, since coming to college. Procrastination took over, and now there’s nothing but a sad mass of organs and skin staring at a laptop, unwilling to work. Or was there will in the first place? Your room is a mess. Your dirty clothes can’t fit in the laundry basket because you haven’t folded the clean load from weeks ago, so it’s strewn across the unswept floor, hanging from the open drawers of your wardrobe, crumpled up at the foot of your bed. It’s not like the desk is doing any better. An empty can of Red Bull, wrinkled receipts from the Bow Wow, dozens of ketchup packets that you never use because you stole an entire bottle from the dining hall on a burger day. The only neatness is a subset of the trash hidden in an Uber Eats paper bag.
It seems that your busy, brilliant, focused self from high school no longer exists. You brainrot on TikTok for hours, stop yourself, then laugh at Instagram reels and YouTube shorts. You swipe with maybe three seconds per video; an aliquot of dopamine every second; scroll when you need more. Sure, maybe your old brain cells are still there, but they’re spread evenly within the big brain in your big head, happily living their own lives—never mind a forced group project that you try to throw at them. Your clothes, your litter, your neurons, all dispersed, your life, all falling apart, like the feta you scooped on your salad that rolled off the arugula helplessly.
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Prompt from Daily Themes Week 1: Metaphors
Recalling our talk about the hidden concreteness of abstract words (e.g., the Fred Robinson excerpt), choose any single abstract word that especially interests you. Study its history from its first appearance in the Oxford English Dictionary, and, with that etymology in mind, write a theme that plays on the metaphor implied in its root. You can make the word prominent in your theme or keep it subtle.