Demons

 edit: the new Doja cat album is good. hence the title. if I'm talking about my demons live on the internet at least I'll have good music in the background.  

I'm really disappointed in myself to be writing this, but Le Guin's writing is painfully boring. It was a big letdown. Not at all what I had been expecting from her. 

short story: if you like lord of the rings you will probably like Le Guin's writing. I don't like either

I struggle with boring literature. I'm aware that in my younger years I would have had more time for it, more ambition to read the books that people told me I should read because they were Good Literature. but I think I college I stopped thinking that way. I stopped giving credit to institutions where credit wasn't due. I stopped believing in meandering intricate sentences that try and impress you with how smart they are and started believing in short sentences that weren't bashful about how they saw themselves. Sentences that got to the point. I don't think I'm an entirely jaded reader, I just think I still believe that the romance of reading is inherent to the process. If you don't fall in love with the book why the fuck are you reading it? 

I say all of this after forcing myself through a 900 page anthology of le Guin's work. there was a brief moment during city of illusions where I became interested in the lot, but everything aside from that felt incredibly dull, like reading lord of the rings. I mostly just read that because I had nothing else to read. 

When I reflect, I'm not really sure how I got to be a good reader, or even seen as a reader among my friends. It wasn't my intention. I remember when I wrote a play for my friends in middle school, a modern reworking of the princess and the frog. my friends, to my delight, were massive nerds and they went along with everything I wrote. I realize that just as much as I draw I also write. writing has become habitual to me in a way few other activities have become. And it's only after ten years of writing for myself that I start to think, I might actually have half a decent shot at making a worthwhile book. 

I wish I adored le Guin. I really wanted to love her books, especially because she lives in Portland like me. but I just couldn't. 

why am I perpetually exhausted by life? Le Guin makes me tired of life. she's good for bedtime reading for this reason. 

and I appreciate an anarchist science fiction novel! Really what couldn't be more perfect for me. But you take some of the coolest shit, anarchy and science fiction, and somehow manage to make it boring. Just a total disgrace. Anarchy isn't boring but somehow Le Guin found a way to make it dull and I resent that. 

I also realize I don't know much about anarchy. I think I've reached the point after school where I am ready to get back into theory reading. I had been very disillusioned by everything upon my graduation, hardly believing in the merit of my own degree, but now I sort of miss the ability to play with ideas in my head. to always have something I was thinking about or could relate to my life. 

That's why I like Marxism so much. it relates directly to our lives we can understand our material conditions immediately. in this way it feels like a theory for "the people". 

I think le Guin has a poor understanding of plot. in the first book of the anthology I read, Rocannon's world, she starts by telling a story of Semley, a goddess like woman who time travels to find a lost jewel. All through the story I didn't understand what the point of this lost jewel was. Knowing how to pick a beginning is half the battle it would seem, because that's your one chance to truly wow an audience. so anyway. I really disliked Rocannon's world. 

ugh. my brain feels like peach fuzz, dim and tired. 

In short: having a brain is exhausting and damn near a suicidal proposal in in itself. The brain can cannibalize itself, as I realize my brain so often does. but, I think, given the option, I would rather overthink. We live in a world where people don't do enough of it. Really push themselves to the edge of their mental capacities. how are we ever to really know ourselves without this ability to surpass our limits? 

and I don't even think that's a supposition of thinking over feeling. I know myself enough to know that I do not sacrifice my feelings for my thinking. I've lived enough to learn not how to do that. I know when a feeling comes up and I really shouldn't ignore it. 

I forget the proposition of our encounter, how it began, but a therapist in the clinic once implied I think too much. I get in my head too much. This is obvious. Its why I have insomnia. it's why I'm a Psycho. 

And I know my anxious ruminating so often depresses me. Gets me into these pits I can't get out of. 

I try and look at the events leading up to my breakdown. With my eating disorder there was a lot of obvious signs revealing I wasn't O.K. But I look for a similar road map with my schizophrenia. Where did I go wrong? All I see is a girl who knew her shit too well. The only accurate response to this world is to be depressed and psycho. I refuse to numb myself out to this just because it is inconvenient. Feelings are inconvenient. Critical thinking is inconvenient. I remain in this world a principled inconvenience.  

edit: i do think, to be fair to Le Guin, she does something interesting by blending the power of myth and science fiction. its an interesting idea. it helps consecrate her worlds into a real feeling. But it just feels so painfully dull. I am interested in the woman Takver, her relationship with Shevek is interesting. i think le Guin could be brilliant at writing her characters if she dug into their personalities more instead of sinking her teeth into the otherness of her world. i don't know. again, it feels very lord of the rings.