There were many things he’d never set his mind to, which maybe he should. He knew it would be easy to develop and share an opinion on politics, but he just hadn’t had the time to set his mind to it/them. He was pretty sure it’d be a good idea to set his mind to cooking and having better dietary habits than to set his mind to voting or knowing who to vote for. What good would his knowledge of local politicians be if he died from scurvy or equivalent?

He had planned, for a long time, to set his mind on cleaning too, but had just found himself hung up with other things. It was just the idea of knowing what detergents to use where and what to sweep and what to vacuum and how many times was this necessary. But at the end of the day, he really didn’t have much to clean anyway, at least in the way of dishes.

What was his mind so taken up with? Where had he set his mind, not planning on picking it back up again? If you looked for it, you could find it on the television. He set his mind to entertainment with great passion! He was focused and unmovable on that point. He needed to fill his mind with entertainment and it needed to be exceptional entertainment too. That’s why it took so much of his mind, because he needed to study it in order to be sure it was worth his pleasure.

His mind was also, sadly, set on his bank account. Not because he wished so terribly to see it grow, but because he didn’t want to look at it one day and see it empty. Due to his social situation, he was forced (although many people avoided it) to set his mind to miserable finances.

His mind was set, and often lost, in music. Not in the way an insane man will lose his mind, but in a healthy, wonderful way. Music made room for his emotions to dive into his consciousness and swim freely. What joy it was to feel the ebb and flow of music through him.

He also set his mind on the beauty of the female form. Once he had noticed it at a young age, he was hooked. His mind, whether he made a point of it or not, was drawn to a girl’s body, usually through his eyes. This wasn’t a problem, it never got in the way of relationships or social and legal expectations of “normal” men, but it did certainly take up a great deal of his mental power (which was already probably quite limited).

But why was it that he left such a small fraction of his thoughts for bigger ideas? Love, peace, respect, faith, goodness, these ideas had to sleep in the same small closet in his brain where he shoved all the enormous, important and worthwhile things that he could set his mind on. Yes, he still had the ideas in and on his mind, many people actually tossed those ideas out of their heads (usually to fill them with child pornography). But he kept them where he knew they were and took them out to admire them, look at them, wish he knew more about them and how to share them. And yet, when he was talking to people he met (who barely took up a sliver of his mind), he would always share the latest movie, television show or record he had heard.

So, this was why he couldn’t set his mind on politics. He couldn’t afford the space.