During lockdown — which I began in mid-March, before the UK (where I live) officially locked down, and pretty much continue to this day — I have been on a roller coaster of emotional reaction. Some days I’m not too bad, feel like I get productive work done, and manage to conjure up a relative optimism about at least my own personal future, if not that of the world at large. More often, I end up doomscrolling on Twitter, getting bogged down in the horrific news roiling both the UK and the US (my home), and ending up so distracted and depressed that I cannot concentrate on writing.
This makes me nuts, because I know I should be taking advantage of this comparative downtime to catch up on all the work I need to do here — from hacking away at an ever-growing backlog of reviews to backend admin stuff that there’s never time for — as well as getting going on all the new movie-related projects I want to do, plus the fiction that is ready to burst out of my head, if only I could sit down and work on it.
This becomes a seesaw, too: I have to acknowledge to myself that I am a sensitive and politically aware person living through a cultural cataclysm, and that is inevitably going to be somewhat distracting. I have to remind myself that writing and publishing three feature-length reviews in a week — as I did this past week — is a tremendous output… or would have been, in a time before the Internet, with its insatiable appetite for content. And yet I still end up feeling wildly inadequate. Like a failure. Like if I could just figure out how to game this new digital world, as some people seem to have managed, I would be doing all right.
(When I first moved to London, almost 10 years ago, I befriended — as in, we’d chat amiably at screenings — an older male critic who had been working for a major London newspaper for absolute ages. If I remember correctly, he may have already been aware of who I was, and had already been reading my work before we met. He told me that his job was basically a two-and-a-half-day-a-week gig — go to a few screenings, write a few reviews — for which he got paid a near six-figure salary. I’ll never forget the unfairness of how this entire industry had changed between his career — he retired years ago, and probably his situation would not have endured much longer anyway — and mine. My income is six figures only if you count the figures to the right of the decimal. *sigh*)
Anyway: I’m not looking for pity or reassurance or cookies or anything like that. I’m just explaining why I am behind on everything, and reassuring you that I feel hella guilty that I feel like I’m letting my loyal readers down. I’ll likely have an upswing soon, and get back on track.
i know… i know… but you’ve *always* been too hard on yourself and expected too much… it’s what i admire but also makes me a little afraid for you.
Don’t worry about it, MaryAnn. We’re all just doing our best right now. Take care of yourself!
INTPs usually need a period of inactivity to recharge their thoughts even in the absence of any new distracting input. In this situation, there’s a constant stream of new information generating endless new frightening trees of possibility, so it’s only natural to feel overwhelmed and creatively paralyzed for lengthy periods while you process it all.
This won’t work for everyone, but I find taking a short, safe walk in a wooded area and having at least one “the internet doesn’t exist” day a week helps keep my outlook from spiraling into negativity. Rewatching and rereading the entertainment “comfort food” that sparked my love of movies/science fiction/animation has helped too. Really made me wish there was a director’s cut of Neverending Story that fixed the ending too… but that’s a separate topic. Maybe the Duffer Brothers could produce a remake series after ST wraps up – oh, or an Earthsea series that finally casts a person of colour as Ged, oooh that would be so sweet. Sorry… got distracted for a sec.
Getting back to the pep talk, it’s a super stressful time – don’t be too hard on yourself. only a sociopath completely lacking empathy or a literal Saint (or maybe Alexander Hamilton) could be consistently productive in these crazy times. Do the best you can manage, a little at a time, take as many breaks as you need, be proud of the work you do and have done, which is appreciated and admired by many. You’ve picked some fantastic films to review lately. Your reviews even made a cheapskate like me briefly consider subscribing to a streaming service. Not gonna do it, but I thought about it for a solid minute and a half – moved my cursor over the button and everything.
I have always admired your writing and your reviews. Your insight is an inspiration to me.
No, you’re not letting us down. At all.
And if that doesn’t happen for a while, that’s fine too.
I hate the cultural messaging that tells us that THIS is finally the time to be productive—that this time of raging pandemic and mass deaths, police brutality and racial upheaval, open fascism, economic cataclysm, environmental catastrophe, and general systemic collapse, is the perfect time to find some creative headspace and bring all our dream projects to fruition! It’s… not. We’re all struggling. Please don’t be too hard on yourself for struggling too.
The system you’re trying to game (and that we’re all trying to game) is fucked. It’s designed to produce many more losers than winners. And it’s DESIGNED to make the losers feel bad about their “inadequacy.” It’s unjust and doesn’t take care of everybody and needs to be rethought from the ground up. You work hard, MaryAnn. If you’re not being rewarded for your work, that’s not your fault. It’s the fault of all the lies we’ve been fed by this goddamned system that says Jeff Bezos is worth $137 billion and anyone struggling by on less than six figures should feel bad for not doing more.
You’re awesome. Fuck the system.
Thanks for all the kind words, everyone.
<3