Assorted thoughts update #6

I'm in the midst of nursing an incredibly lengthy and miserable burnout period that I'm having trouble seeing a way out of. Obviously, I'm constantly holding out hope that I'll find one; I'm (sort of) in therapy again, I'm slowly picking at a digital drawing after several months of no real creative output on that end (wow!); basically, I'm trying to Do Things. Though I'm still stuck in this state of like, up-and-down moods, without ever consistently "feeling good", so it's notttt looking too hot at the moment.

Another symptom of this is that it gets harder and harder to see the point in writing... anything, really, because the insecurity of anticipating audience response (negative, or outright lack of) is genuinely incapacitating when I'm in the dumps. That said, I do tend to feel better after writing something out, regardless of what happens with it, so I'm forcing out a journal entry in hopes that it'll fix me (or at least give me some relief!)

• Ability to read has been Dire lately, but I have managed to finish Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery! The experience of reading it, around the end, was actually a lot more miserable than it should've been because a lot of the ending just kept reminding me of my own awful mental state, and the whole time I was like ughhh!!! I should be having FUN here, this is GREAT writing, I am so FRUSTRATED!!! Everything seems tainted by this goddamn burnout at the moment.

But anyways, quick thoughts on the book itself: this is the third full work of Montgomery's I read this year -- after giving The Blue Castle a try, and rereading Anne of Green Gables -- , and it's definitely my second favourite of the three. Despite my Problems. I've always enjoyed Montgomery's prose when it comes to landscape description: she really wrote like she was enamoured with everything she saw, and she was my first introduction to a book getting Gorgeous with it when it comes to language. There's a lot in EoNM that's reminiscent of AoGG, but I think Emily as a character is one I find more interesting than Anne. I like that she has sharper edges to her, and her journey as a child discovering her own love for writing and growing to be more discerning and critical of her work and aiming towards improvement is something that really resonated with me.

Funnily enough, I find both AoGG and EoNM a lot more... adult, and down to Earth, compared to The Blue Castle, which is among LMM's novels actually intended for an adult audience? I've been meaning to write my thoughts on that, some time, but it'll have to wait for when I no longer feel like a pile of sludge T_T

 

• Right now, I'm slowly making my way through a book on the Drefyus Affair, which I'd been meaning to learn about properly for a while now. It was written following the centennial of the year Dreyfus was officially cleared of all false charges against him, and serves as a kind of retrospective of the event's history, how that history was written, and the influence it had on the actual practice of history in France, of gathering evidence, of dealing with revisionism and falsification given the tug-of-war of establishing facts between the dreyfusard and antidreyfusard camps, etc etc. It's also a collection of essays, which each author treating the Affair and its social/cultural/political/historical impact under different lenses. I have a lot of fun with it, whenever I manage to actually sit down and read it. It's been interesting to get more insight into this massive event in contemporary French history.

• I made a letterboxd account recently, purely to lurk and read other people's reviews, and God is it really making me resent the whole Social Media aspect of interacting with any sort of art. All these bite-sized, witty comments meant first and foremost to gather likes taking up all the space in the top reviews... it's so annoying. Say something true and beautiful, etc etc. I've thankfully managed to hunt down the users posting longer, more substantial reviews that are actually a pleasure to read, but I am still bummed out for having to spend so long scrolling to find some interesting reviews of movies I personally just happened to watch.

• Speaking of movies! I managed to watch a couple good ones last month: I did rewatch the Star Wars original trilogy last month, I watched The Iron Giant (FANTASTIC kid's movie) and The Banshees of Inishering (this one requires a rewatch, but it did leave a lot of food for thought). Once again, though, I am having all of my current media experiences stained by the stupid burnout emotions, which did not make for the most fulfilling movie experiences... can I please be free.

And this is about as far as I can think to write. I've been doing and enjoying a lot more things than this one post would have you believe, and I really do hope I find the energy to talk about them eventually. My brain has been craving some meta/analysis posting for a while now, I just need to cope with all the bad feelings before I can get to that...