“The Kekulé Problem” is a 2017 nonfiction essay by writer Cormac McCarthy for the Santa Fe Institute. It was his first published work of nonfiction. He theorizes about the nature of the unconscious mind and its separation from human language. The unconscious, according to McCarthy, “is a machine for operating an animal” and that “all animals have an unconscious.” McCarthy goes on to postulate that language is purely a human cultural creation, and not a biologically determined phenomenon. (Wikipedia)

“You may have read a thousand books and be able to discuss any one of them without remembering a word of the text.”

“The unconscious wants to give guidance to your life in general but it doesn’t care what toothpaste you use.”

“The unconscious seems to know a great deal. What does it know about itself? Does it know that it’s going to die? What does it think about that?”

The essay checked a lot of my boxes: awareness, consciousness, ego, thoughts.