A Fruitless Loop

I recently read in my horoscope that I must beware falling into a fruitless loop. I love the term. I rolled it around on my tongue like it was a mouthful of rare and expensive wine and my job was to define all of its subtle nuances. Then the phrase began to play tricks with my mind. It was like an earworm. A tape track playing over and over and over until I couldn’t shake it loose.

Soon my thoughts centered on cereal. Quite a jump, but you catch my drift…Fruit Loops…no, they must be fruitless loops, like in plain Cheerios. I love Cheerios. Cheerios with sliced banana or blueberries, skim milk, and a couple of cups of coffee. That gets me going in the morning. Cheerios at night while watching TV and sipping a nice smooth Pinot Noir. Cheerios, you ask, with wine? Sure. Toss them in with some trail mix and you have quite a healthy snack...especially if you buy the whole grain instead of the plain. But, back to the fruitless loop, what does that mean?

I suppose it’s like taking the freeway home, and then looping from one interchange to another, going through the motions, driving on automatic pilot…but then again you would have a destination or goal in that scenario. You’d be on a freeway loop but there’d be fruit at the end because you’d arrive home. How about walking on the treadmill yet going nowhere? But wait a minute, that would also bear fruit, wouldn’t it? You would at least lose some weight or firm and tone your legs, stop your butt from sagging. So that could be considered fruit, the fruits of your labors. What about the hamster racking up miles on the wheel? He’s going around and around and getting nowhere fast. Or is he? Maybe that workout aids his digestion so he gets to eat more fruit. Think about it.

Seriously, I think the fruitless loop is about human emotion. It’s about being locked into one way of thinking that shows little or no progress. Or the replaying of negative messages, thoughts without end, without purpose, and that bear nothing positive. No fruit for the effort. I think that’s it. It’s a mind thing, the games we play with our thoughts, the endless analyzing.

A fruitless loop, I love it. Have you ever been on one, and how did you jump off?