Lyrics “Ibiza in Winter” – Pet Needs, 2022
Let’s try this again, shall we? I might slowly, very slowly manage to crawl out of this January slump of constantly feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. This morning, I read the 2nd part of a series of articles [in German] on “wellbeing” (quite general term, I know). It was about the importance of daylight. Nothing new, really, I know I need more of that especially in this season. But it’s hard to do, when my job keeps me indoors at the office or at my desk at home for about 8 hours each day during the exact 8 hours when it is light outside. I know, I know dusk and dawn also count, I think. Anyway, because this 2024/2025 winter is really dragging my mood down, I checked out reliable tests for daylight lamps and on a whim ordered one of the recommended models. From Amazon, yes. Sue me.
I know or assume at least that some of the mental exhaustion also is caused by general overwhelm with work and other responsibilities. Caused by self-doubt. By the sense that I want to change things to make me feel better, but not really knowing where to start and then beating myself up for my inertia. I buy books on various self-help topics, which I then abandon too quickly. I listen to podcasts on various of those topics, which sometimes make me buy more books. I need to get started with some “things” and just stick with it, I guess.
I’m back at my personal version of “Zen Doodleing” at least, which helps.
I’ve also stayed (mostly) off social media for the last 24 hours, which also helps. Even though I’m almost ashamed to admit that. These days I get a lot of my news and especially news commentary from Instagram and it feels weird to not keep up-to-date throughout the day, with everything going on in the world and here at home. But it did help. I checked in earlier this evening and it started to feel too much very quickly, so I logged off again.
A [German] blog post from Christian yesterday made me ponder how my relationship with social networks has changed over time, especially in the past few months. I was still hung up on Twitter for much longer than I should have been, because I met so many wonderful people through it. For someone like me with self-esteem issues it always has been easier to get in touch / get to know people online than offline. In the late 90s I started a fan message board / fanpage for a German TV show and made friends for life through it. Thus the loss of Twitter might have hit me harder than I realized. In the past few years I met (online, but in some cases also offline later) wonderful people on Instagram as well. I’m afraid that my version of that network might go under sooner that I would like. Fuck those spineless tech-bros.
All these intangible connections are now being scattered all over the various new networks which are popping up. There is no way I can or will keep up with everyone everywhere. I will lose some of those connections and that just makes me a bit sad.
In his blog post Christian also stated that it might be time to revive blogs and maybe spend some more thought on what we put out into the ether instead of just sharing every thought the minute that thought pops up. I’ve been paraphrasing here, obviously. But this post might be an attempt at that as well.
Tomorrow (but to be honest probably not before sometime next week) I try to be back with more substantial thoughts on the state of the world. My 2cents anyway. Or with possible some podcasts recommendations and things I’ve learned from those.
For now, I’ll go back to reading the last-but-one book in the Chronicles of St. Mary’s series: “A Catalogue of Catastrophe”, where they are trying to make sure that the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 was in fact thwarted the way it had been.
Yes, I know that this is NOT the Palace of Westminster from 1605 but from the mid 1800s. What can I say, I don’t have pod to travel back in time, so this will have to do.
