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thinking about how when you experience a lot of shame in your formative years (indirectly, directly, as abuse or just as an extant part of your environment) it becomes really difficult to be perceived by other people in general. the mere concept of someone watching me do anything, whether it's a totally normal activity or something unfamiliar of embarrassing, whether I'm working in an excel spreadsheet or being horny on main, it just makes my skin crawl and my brain turn to static because I cannot convince myself that it's okay to be seen and experienced. because to exist is to be ashamed and embarrassed of myself, whether I'm failing at something or not, because my instinctive reaction to anyone commenting on ANYTHING I'm doing is to crawl into a hole and die. it's such a bizarre and dehumanizing feeling to just not be able to exist without constantly thinking about how you are being Perceived. ceaseless watcher give me a god damn break.
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Andrea Gibson, Lord of the Butterflies
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Cat POV
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Anonymous asked:
Hi there, I seem to remember vaguely that you once mentioned way way back in the good ol' post grad days that you are struggling with not making everything As Hard As Possible (tm) for yourself. Sooooo I was wondering if you figured something out that made it better (= not making it feel like you are 'cheating,' taking a shortcut)? (asking for ... it's me .. hi.. I'm the problem etc). Feel free to delete this, if this feels too personal!!
omg deep cut !! but yes i 100% do remember this, and i have gotten better. it took a lot of time to unlearn, and i still catch myself doing it occasionally! but throughout undergrad + the beginning of grad school i definitely found myself thinking that if i wasn't suffering, i must not be working hard enough all the time, which is like....... first of all, very messed up, second of all, tell me you're from new england without telling me you're from new england lmao. the puritan work ethic is alive and well in northeast america!! i definitely inherited it from my mom, who i love and respect very much and who has, as i've grown up, become a model for exactly how i do not want to approach work. she is an insanely, insanely hard worker, for very good reasons (she's the reason i could go to college! etc!). but it absolutely was a gift of the magi situation--she worked incredibly hard in order to make a good life for our family, but that intensity had real direct and negative consequences to her life, yk? that tendency to overwork defined a lot of my relationship with her until i moved out for undergrad. i grew up with the kind of internalized, implicit understanding that working so hard you hurt yourself was the right thing to do--that doing your job well required making sacrifices (health, relationships, personal interior life) which, like a game of subconscious telephone, eventually distorted into "if you're not suffering and making those sacrifices you're not working hard enough." fucked up, y'all! i spent a lot of time feeling shame for even attempting to prioritize anything above Doing My Work. which is not to say that i didn't have beautiful relationships or hobbies or whatever--i did--but they almost always came second to work, and in academia (as in many other careers) there is always more work to be done. whenever they did come first, they were attended by a nagging sense of guilt and debt--if i "let myself" have fun one weekend, that was fine, but i needed to work extra hard to make up for it later in the week.
forcing work further down the priority list was really hard and it took a long time. arguably i have now forced it too far down the list and i am now scrambling to get things done but yk what, we're all works in progress and it's a constant balancing act out here.
anyway okay concrete things that i think helped:
- approaching work as something that you do, rather than something that you are. idk if you're in academia, anon, but this is an issue with grad school particularly, imo--"grad student" feels like an identity rather than a job, for many of us. the sooner you can get a little distance from that, the better. you are a whole-ass human being with value that is completely independent of your academic labor.
- setting boundaries--no work after 6pm, no work email on the phone, whatever.
- scheduling things seriously. i'm talking non-negotiable, in the calendar, non-work activities. whether that's getting brunch with friends, taking a fitness class, journaling, going for a walk, whatever. time manage those like they and your work are equally important in your daily life, because they are.
- going on the academic job market. i've seen this veer wildly in the other direction but for me and some other folks i know, the market worked as this immovable blunt-force trauma that forces you to fully conceptualize a version of yourself that has to leave academia. i found this both terrifying and very freeing--imaginatively constructing a whole-ass version of me that had nothing to do with academia at all was exciting, in a lot of ways.
- getting a pet :) 100% fr. this is not a fix-all, but having this stupid perfect creature dependent on you forces you to have an identity as Primary Caretaker and Cuddler which is distinct from your identity as Labor Producer and if it's a creature that needs to go outside it will also help you remember that there's an entire world out there beyond your desk.
i realize that this is all about overidentifying with your work and not that feeling of cheating or taking shortcuts specifically--but for me, realizing that my work was my job and not my entire self is how i stopped feeling the shortcut guilt. being strategic, letting the occasional opportunity slide or taking the "easy" road rather than the hardest possible one--all of those things became so much easier to do once i understood that they are not a negative reflection of me as a human being. they're actions i take because i have other goals, just as important to me. those shortcuts are, in their own way, me working hard something else--at chilling tf out, spending time with people i love, having a life, experiencing non-research-related joy and contentment and connection.
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All the Beauty and the Bloodshed (Laura Poitras, 2022)
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Amedée Julien Marcel-Clément (French, 1873--?)
Source: oldpaintings
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a very beautiful, slightly creepy church basement
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The Australian Ballet in Giselle
Source: twitter.com
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Jazz is great and all but I want to see what happens when someone plays the saxophone in a way that can show off its TRUE potential.
Like some crazy shit.
Ever heard of Roland Kirk?
this guy used to take 5 tabs of acid (and gave it away for free to his fans during concert) and then play 3 saxophones SIMULTANEOUSLY!!!!
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how to start reading again
from someone who was a voracious reader until high school and is now getting back into it in her twenties.
start with an old favourite. even though it felt a little silly, i re-read the harry potter series one christmas and it wiped away my worry that i wasn't capable of reading anymore. they are long books, but i was still able to get completely immersed and to read just as fast as i had years and years ago.
don't be afraid of "easier" books. before high school i was reading the french existentialists, but when getting back into reading, i picked up lucinda riley and sally rooney. not my favourite authors by far, but easier to read while not being totally terrible. i needed to remind myself that only choosing classics would not make me a better or smarter person. if a book requires a slower pace of reading to be understood, it's easier to just drop it, which is exactly what i wanted to avoid at first.
go for essays and short stories. no need to explain this one: the shorter the whole, the less daunting it is. i definitely avoided all books over 350 pages at first and stuck to essay collections until i suddenly devoured donna tartt's goldfinch.
remember it's okay not to finish. i was one of those people who finished every book they started, but not anymore! if i pick up a book at the library and after a few chapters realise i'd rather not read it, i just return it. (another good reason to use your local library! no money spent on books you might end up disliking.)
analyse — or don't. some people enjoy reading more when they take notes or really stop to think about the contents. for me, at first, it was more important to build the habit of reading, and the thought of analysing what i read felt daunting. once i let go of that expectation, i realised i naturally analyse and process what i read anyway.
read when you would usually use your phone. just as i did when i was a child, i try to read when eating, in the bathroom, on public transport, right before sleeping. i even read when i walk, because that's normally a time i stare at my screen anyway. those few pages you read when you brush your teeth and wait for a friend very quickly stack up.
finish the chapter. if you have time, try to finish the part you're reading before closing the book. usually i find i actually don't want to stop reading once i get to the end of a chapter — and if i do, it feels like a good place to pick up again later.
try different languages. i was quickly approaching a reading slump towards the end of my exchange year, until i realised i had only had access to books in english and that, despite my fluency, i was tired of the language. so as soon as i got back home i started picking up books in my native tongue, which made reading feel much easier and more fun again! after some nine months, i'm starting to read in english again without it feeling like a huge task.
forget what's popular. i thought social media would be a fun way to find interesting books to read, but i quickly grew frustrated after hating every single book i picked up on some influencer's recommendation. it's certainly more time-consuming to find new books on your own, but this way i don't despise every novel i pick up.
remember it isn't about quantity. the online book community's endless posts about reading 150 books each year or 6 books in a single day easily make us feel like we're slow, bad readers, but here's the thing: it does not matter at all how many books you read or what your reading pace is. we all lead different lives, just be proud of yourself for reading at all!
stop stressing about it. we all know why reading is important, and since the pandemic reading has become an even more popular hobby than it was before (which is wonderful!). however, there's no need to force yourself to be "a reader". pick up a book every now and then and keep reading if you enjoy it, but not reading regularly doesn't make you any less of a good person. i find the pressure to become "a person who reads" or to rediscover my inner bookworm only distances me from the very act of reading.
this is super great advice, if you don't mind me adding one:
Figure out what you like and be okay with quitting what you don't! For me, what kept me from reading for a while was being halfway through a book I wasn't interested in reading and then not reading at all bc I didn't want to read all of it. Figure out what plots intrigue you, look for those, and then if a book isn't great? drop it. Move on to the next. give it a chance butt if you notice yourself not motivated to read it, then just move on.
What wild stuff do ya'll wanna see me cook up next
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folkestone white horse 🎠
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patch notes for Forest: deer have beam attacks now
Parallel evolution with SUVs and pickup trucks.
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Source: instagram.com