Catching Up on Yourself is Never Easy
Much like the rest of the country, temperatures are rarely moderate in our apartment. On cold nights the chill trespasses through walls and blankets. On hot days like these, our room becomes an oven. You couldn't stay in there for very long without (warm, uncomfortable) air blasting through the fans. I prefer the former - I can't stand the heat. It gives me migraines.
Sometimes, I don't love people is April through May's persistent theme. I struggle to express anything but words adjacent to this feeling. At home, I tend to isolate. I've grown more sensitive to noise and disorder. I flinch at another person's touch. I'm irritable and impatient and I wish I can blame it all on the weather. When hanging out with friends lately, I get overly conscious, afraid that I'd say something I'd regret. Afraid to discover that deep down I'm a terrible person, the way I judge and condescend at my peers, the way I build resentment over certain privileges they enjoy, the way I've grown impatient listening to their lot in life, and the way I'm unable to be honest and kind at the same time. I didn't expect to run out of empathy so soon this year when I don't think I'd extended enough.
I wish I would just stop holding myself to a higher standard but that wouldn't be much of me, wouldn't it? I wish I was able to offer words of encouragement to myself the way my friends do, that I was better at consoling them and holding their hand through misery and grief.
I say to my partners, can you give me some time for myself, when I mean to say, sometimes I don't love people. I don't hate them. That should be okay. I know we're all trying our best out here.
It's awkward, when you haven't checked in with yourself in a while and you're forced into a conversation with your thoughts. "It's hot these days, isn't it?" It's boring but it can start with that. Then you talk about what you like, your hobbies, interests.
Let's try that again.
Climate change is not a natural phenomenon, it's political. The world is on fire but it didn't spontaneously combust. Global warming is arson.
My favorite flavor of milkshake is salted caramel. I'm also a bit lactose intolerant.
I brought Han Kang's Human Acts to the office to read. I taught my co-workers how to play Love Letter. Hate to admit it but I do look forward to our RTOs - it makes me feel like a fully realized adult with stable occupation, that semblance of normalcy most people my age so desperately desire. A neurotic under bright white light cosplaying as a model employee on a swivel chair. My manager praises me for my "amazing communication and for owning up" to my work.
This past month I made s. watch all 2 seasons of Star Wars: Andor and consequently completed my second viewing. It's just really unfortunate that it's fandom-locked in one of the most frustrating and uneven sci-fi franchises to ever exist. It almost pisses me off how hard it is to recommend, if I didn't already resign myself to the fact.
Andor is a prequel to the film Rogue One (2016), which in itself is a prequel to A New Hope (1977). While it's watchable on its own, the emotional payoff of knowing where it ultimately leads to turns Andor from a good spy/rebel drama into a truly tragic but hopeful masterwork about one's commitment to antifascist resistance. It's amazing how this show complements decades of established lore about space wizards and outrageously fancy capes that manage to flap in the void (I don't mind this - it looks cool) without featuring any of those. Not a single lightsaber. Instead it focuses on the gritty reality of fighting a fascist regime, how rebellions are built on the backs of ordinary people who decided, one day, to raise their heads and start looking straight in the eye of their oppressors and say, no. We won't suffer anymore.
Okay, I lied. There were cool capes.
It's such a great show, not only because of the quality of dialogue, the amount of care put in character work, and the compelling story, but because it felt relevant and pressing, its reflections on Empire and the fight against its machinery so obviously inspired by both history and current events it even has leftist in-fighting.
Karis Nemik (from Andor):
The Imperial need for control is so desperate because it is so unnatural. Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.
I'm not a fan of Star Wars - I think there's a larger conversation to be had about how accountable it is for its more vocal followers' tendency to advocate right-wing politics. On the surface this is ironic given the good guys in the main stories are rebels, but it starts to make sense when this whole Good (Rebels? The mostly ineffective Jedi?) vs Evil (Empire and cool capes) is diluted into a personal/moral conflict.
Despite being shunned by the majority of Star Wars fans online, I also believe The Last Jedi (2017) is the best the franchise has produced since the original trilogy, outside Rogue One and until Andor. Rian Johnson challenged the Star Wars mythos while reinforcing what made the original trilogy so timeless. I loved that the movie got rid of the Chosen One trope and demystified resistance heroes. I loved its take on the aged, disillusioned Luke Skywalker and his relationship with the teachings of the Jedi. The parallels between the antagonist Kylo Ren, hailing from a lineage of powerful Force users and the protagonist Rey, a nobody, who in the end inherits Luke's legacy. Even the disproportionately maligned Canto Bight sequence served as a reminder to the viewer on the excesses of the rich enabled by the Empire and as a wake-up call to Finn that there's a cause larger than himself - and that any small act of insurrection can inspire others to do the same.
The hardcore purists of course got mad at Rian Johnson for understanding what kind of art we should be making today, for choosing to tell his own story. I'm not saying TLJ is flawless but the amount of bad faith criticism and vitriol lobbied at it until now is insane. What's particularly confusing is the same people who were mad at it for being "too woke" lauded Andor, when both are branches from the same ideological tree. Is it because TLJ's protagonist is a woman? At this point I'm convinced this community is collecting the most infuriating, media-illiterate gaggle of keyboard douchebags.
Because there was such an uproar about "breaking canon", the studio undid TLJ's contributions to the lore in the follow-up, resulting to an inconsistent mess I hesitate to even call a film. It's a blatant hodgepodge of corporate meddling and fan kowtowing it might as well be an ad that says, "sorry we tried to serve you a meal, here's your dog food". Even funnier that nobody liked it. Not even the fans it was trying to appease.
Obsessing over the canonicity of material is a conservative act. Imagine if Doctor Who cared about its own continuity! Imagine if the fanfic writers treated the canon as unbreakable law! But I digress.
"Rebellions are built on hope." This is the thesis of Rogue One and The Last Jedi, and Andor explored how grueling the struggle can be before you can find a glimmer of that hope. It will be messy and bloody. But once you do, it will have been worth it.
Mao Tse-tung:
A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous. A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.
Another show I'm following closely is the anime adaptation of Shirahama Kamome's Witch Hat Atelier. Episode 5 was amazing. I might talk about it here once the entire season is done, if I don't yap about it elsewhere. Letting thoughts stew in my head.
And there you go. Writing about the simpler things you enjoy does help, and when you do you'll end up talking about the most immediate concerns of the world or about your troubles regulating your emotions anyway.
After I wrote this post, K.M. and I watched Project Hail Mary (also recommended by k.). This type of fiction is a balm... Afterwards, s. made dinner. They had picked the green peas off the frozen veggies pack before putting them in the steak sauce because they knew I didn't like them.
Often, I love people.
Side-quests Accomplished
🗡️ Completed April's month-long workout routine. On to May!
Today's Stat Block
STR: 0
DEX: 0
CON: -1 This heat has immobilized me, and I haven't been sleeping well
INT: 0
WIS: +1 Receiving the generosity of others allows me to give myself grace
CHA: -1 I need a haircut