Where's Blake when you need him?

[bironic]

There are too many projects listed on this sticky note, and thus I’m completely unable to start any of them.  But some are important and some are exciting and some have been put off for months.  Aack.

The run-down, in no particular order:

• Complete third-round edits for Accio proceedings. (this weekend)
• Finish preparing Sebastian Roche site for launch. (at my leisure)
• Paper proposal for Patronus 2006. (Dec. 31)
• Paper proposal for Lumos 2006. (Jan. 15)
• Various tasks for the journal (recruitment, annotated bibliography, style guide, &c). (ASAP)
• Excerpt and revise sections of thesis for submission to Watcher Jr., the unfortunately-titled grad/undergrad offshoot of Slayage. (Oct./Nov.)
• Presentation proposal for next spring’s Slayage conference on the Whedonverse. (Oct. 31)
• And, as of this evening, Panel proposal on fanfiction/journal for the Southwest Texas/PCA conference in February. (Nov. 15)

This doesn’t take into account the list of to-do’s, which includes such savory items as: 

• Write a long letter to a college friend who’s about to disown me for lack of communication (and I mean that).
• Reply to about five substantial emails.
• Reëstablish contact with favorite cousin and two teachers.
• Make a bigger dent in what was supposed to be this month’s - no, make that last month's - List of Books I Can’t Believe I Got Through School Without Reading (currently: Innocents Abroad; next up: Wuthering Heights).
• Make the annual slew of doctor’s appointments.
• Help father finish painting the porch and re-attach the gutter.
• Continue two projects from work I’ve taken home, again. Am reconsidering the brilliance of this idea after an enlightening conversation I had with a co-worker in the parking lot yesterday.
• Sit down and make a decision about my future.

Sigh.  

While all of this happens (or not), I have embarked on a journey toward resensitization with a questionable likelihood of success.   I don’t like the jaded, snarky, sometimes callous person I’ve become.  I don’t like how I’ve lost the ability to concentrate and the inclination to think.  I don’t like that the weeks are flying by.  My interpersonal relations, my writing, and my appreciation of life in general are suffering.  So the general goal is to regain some of the strengths I had as a teenager – more specifically, to lengthen and deepen my attention span, have meaningful conversations with people, be excited by the sensual rather than the sexual, care about the quality of my work regardless of whether or how it’s judged by others, think before I speak, feel and savor affection for real people, enjoy little things – without sacrificing the qualities I’ve gained since then that I’d consider growth rather than degeneration. 

In high school I watched good movies with slow development – stuff like “Farewell My Concubine” and “The Sweet Hereafter” and “Blue,” back when Bravo was decent and teachers cared enough to make recommendations.  I used to like classical music.  I used to read articles from Scientific American without catching myself staring into space, enjoyed the meandering sentences of Dickens and Faulkner and Virginia Woolf without losing the thought halfway through.  I used to read poetry.  When I started tuning in to Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I found them difficult to watch because the lines came so quickly, the camera angles kept changing, the commercials interrupted too often (after years of nothing but Star Trek, the onslaught was like trying to absorb the beginning of Moulin Rouge); when I first tried fanfiction, I couldn’t stand its simplicity, had to resort to skimming because it was too painful to give it full attention, was alternately traumatized and aroused by the graphic passages.  How things have changed.…  Fanfiction and the Internet, for all that I’ve come to love them, are, I think, partly to blame for this impatience and for becoming inured to blatant sexuality.

I want to read texts again, not skim them. I want to be shocked again at the explicit, thrilled by the suggestive. 

I want time and caring back. I want to feel things. I want to slow down and soften up and be in the moment like I used to be.

I’m not sure if or how much I should expect to be able to do this.  Is it possible to become something you were almost ten years ago? One of the first synonyms listed for “sensitive” is “thin-skinned.”  Can I become sensitive again without relinquishing what I’ve gained in becoming distanced from it – quick with a quip, occasionally cheeky with strangers, able to skim text, to multitask, to handle fast-paced shows and movies, to give lectures without keeling over, to function well among “normal” people?  Does opening oneself back up to emotions mean that angst will rear its proverbial ugly head too?  Can a person be sensitive while continuing to enjoy the things that dulled that sensitivity? – for instance, does the desire to enjoy the implicit mean giving up slash?  Can a person reverse desensitization in the first place, or is the process unidirectional, like heat exchange, like trying to shed experience and return to some idealized state of innocence, which is of course impossible? 

Thoughts, anyone?

The ideal outcome would be to integrate what I was in high school with what I’ve been lately.  To be snarky when the occasion calls for it, rather than all the time (like now), yet not be hamstrung by the acute pain of knowing how the other person will react (like then).  To be able to watch quick-quips shows like House as well as leisurely-paced foreign films.  To absorb long sentences and complex ideas, and lose patience with the poorly written fanfic and derivative or preposterous entertainment that once exasperated me, and be dissatisfied again to the point of pain or anger with the superficiality of the media and websites and the general American public.  Maybe the trick is to reaquaint myself with the old, sensitive me, and switch it on when it’s needed. 

If all it takes is concentration, dedication and time, then the plan should work: sleeping eight hours a night during the week instead of six or seven; setting aside an hour or so before bed to write in my journal or here (and, silly as it may sound, switching back from these paperback-sized journals to the college-ruled spiral notebooks I used to like might help), for reflection; reading more books; scaling down the “lowbrow” entertainments like bad fanfic; minimizing activities that invite only perusal or a superficial understanding – if that’s even possible where the Internet is involved; and making a point to concentrate on tasks at work and at home until they’re finished instead of bouncing back and forth.

I don’t know.  Is it hopeless?

Heh.  This is exactly the sort of thing I once swore never to put on a blog if I ever started one.

Comments

[pynelyf.livejournal.com]

This *is* the kind of post I generally decry, but in this case is so well-thought out and articulated (and seems to be eeriely applicable to me) that I can actually relate.

I have no deep insights to offer, except perhaps these 3 foreign films. In the Mood For Love and Chunking Express [both directed by Wang Kar Wai, and superb, especially the former].

And I would also recommend After Life, a movie of slow paces and sensitization.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'm adding those movies to my list. Well, "a" list, which is henceforth "my" list. After last summer's mini-extravaganza at your house -- Devdas perhaps notwithstanding -- I will take any recommendations you offer. Plus I like the stuff I've seen of Wang Kar Wai's.

[catilinarian.livejournal.com]

Believe it or not, I know what you mean; parts of this post sounded a lot like what I've been struggling with this past year, and the rest of it I definitely sympathise with. For me, the answer to the shortened attention span, the lack of interest, the general jadedness, is - I hope, it's still in testing phase - to find something more of an intellectual community. You have an intellectual community in the fanfic and study-of-fanfic world, but perhaps something dedicated to the "slower" artforms would help? A book club, a classical music society?

I'm glad I'm not the only one wondering how to integrate what I loved and lost about my high school self (I was re-reading some of my fiction from age seventeen while I was packing to move, and I was shocked, not only by how close the emotions were under the skin in it, but by how free-flowing it was - I used to write like I breathe, before I got so hung up on what other people thought of it, and I'm not sure how to write like that and still be able to produce good, disciplined pieces as well) with my present strengths. I'm not sure what other advice I can offer, but if it helps to know that other people have similar questions...?

I think your ideas are good, but don't get too frustrated if it takes time.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

Isn't it strange how we all think we're alone and unique in our thoughts and fears when, actually, the more personal you get, the more other people relate to you?

Would say more here, but I got your letter last night (!) and am diligently composing a reply to that and to your wonderful email.