🪞sick of self-reflection
In the time I promised myself and you lovely subscribers that I would make this a thing, I was trying to will out something of reality: that I was in the midst of yet another epic burnout.
You’d think I had learnt my lesson, but I had absolutely not. That’ll teach me to make an announcement about writing for myself, only to disappear again for another few months. In the time since, I travelled to Taiwan, had a birthday, reconnected with friends and the relationships in my life, attended my (baby) brother’s wedding, was on a remote island with no internet (and where I’m writing a portion of this), worried about my ageing dog, earnestly started with wedding planning (and everything that came with this) and began a full-time role (story about this another time, but it’s been a big part of *gestures around me* everything that’s going on).
Like all my burnouts, the recovery for this one was equal parts frustrating and not at all rejuvenating.
Unsurprising since I was unwilling to admit to myself that I really needed the rest, but all I could do was stress about what that inaction was doing to me. In hindsight, I was defaulting to my usual self-soothing habits: over-processing which meant too much reflecting and too much thinking of what was happening to me.
As it is with introspection, this can be helpful - but to a degree. I had a look at what I’ve been doing when it comes to all my burnouts. The dichotomy continued in that what I felt was familiar, yet fresh each time.
The feelings are familiar, the fatigue always fresh.
Everything after a while has felt trite - I think that’s what happens if you let thoughts roll around in your head for too long. But for real, I was really bored of being burnt out. If the bad feeling wasn’t enough, it was the boredom that compelled me to acknowledge that something ELSE had to change. Clearly, it wasn’t different enough as I was always finding myself in the same space.
It has become apparent that the root cause for my burnout(s) was pretzeling my abilities and care into spaces that realistically did not fit what I was looking for. It didn’t help that I was always on the search - nothing seemed to fit, and when I tried to make my own way, that didn’t work either.
I always ended up a little bored (then very unspired), or a little uninspired (then very unfulfilled), or a little unfulfilled (then very depressed). And then where do you go after you get depressed? It’s really languish or perish. Inevitably, this means that every burnout recovery gets served with a small side dish of depression.
On the whole, it would end with me sitting with some form of despair. I was burnt out of being in the perpetual cycle of burnout.
The cruelty of burnout and depression is that I couldn’t even begin to tell you what I’ve done this year that’s made me proud to see another year of my life lived. Even though there is plenty.
But here we are, in the last quarter.
Life now feels like it is being lived. I’m not yearning for another place or space, or hoping for another chance or change. I’m exactly where I’m meant to be, leaning into the minutes, days and weeks that pass by - full with nonsense still in its midst, but I carve out spaces for myself to keep my heart full.
I think I’ve managed to fumble my way into what MAEmoji would be for me, and it’s that MAEmoji would be one of those spaces.
🫖 tepid takes
‘Burnout is entirely the result of inner exploitation’
(‘Burnout is the Echo of Self-Judgment’ by Lawrence Yeo, More to That)
Admittedly, this is one of the many things I read that contributed to my over-processing during my burnout. This was, however, maybe the right thing at the right time because it served good perspective that the crux of my burnout was a result of poor boundaries and a lack of accountability to what I wanted for myself and what I was willing to accept. Reckon this goes hand in hand with being a recovering people pleaser.
A sweet homage to parenting in our modern times
(‘The Humbling Tyranny of the Photos Our Kids Take of Us’ by Kira Cook, Romper)
I loved this photo essay - a reminder of the ubiquity of a phone camera; what kids are capturing when you’re in the throes of childrearing/caring. The fact that daily modern life is really not that deep but there’s still much to appreciate with the banal. Bonus points: I liked the writing style.
This was a little too relatable
somewhere along the way I realized I wanted to write my own books instead, to publish more of my own personal writing, and all the draining day jobs and gigs as a writer that I kept collecting were getting in the way of that. There’s only so much writing one brain can manage, and it’s important to know when to draw the line, when to say, “I’m doing too much of this thing that I’m good at for work I don’t care about, and it’s taking me too far afield from the work I really want to do.” This is not always easy, especially when you are financially unstable, as I have consistently been all my life. But there comes a time when you must find a way to choose yourself and your own writing; to say “no” to random wordsmithing so that you can say “yes” to yourself.
Emily sent this Sari Botton newsletter to me some time ago and I’ve reread it a few times. I can see why she did because a lot of what the writer wrestled with early in her career was where I also always found myself. Mostly with what I dealt with when it came to my writing pursuits.
It’s worth reading for any writer who grapples with wanting to make their craft their career. I’ve oscillated through the two paths many times (which has lead to my great life theme of burnout): pursuing work that has nothing to do with writing, or only writing for work. Neither option has lead me to actually do any of my own writing, that’s for sure. Cynically, I’m sure that’s the lesson here.
FICTION: ‘The Plaza’ by Rebecca Makkai (The New Yorker)
In my burnout capacity, I was unable to really engage with a full novel or any kind of long-form research, book or writing. So short stories were really my jam. This was surprisingly compelling and it made for a good hour of reading. A story of how a girl was manipulated into becoming a kept woman. And only realising she was one a little too late.
POETRY: ‘What He Should Have Had’ by Sasha taqwšəblu LaPointe (On Being)
I came across this poem as it was read to me over a ‘Poetry Unbound’ episode and it rocked me so that I had to look it up and read it over again in my own time. Together with the episode, the poet talked about what she felt and had put into this poem. It’s about saying goodbye to a sibling as they choose to stay estranged from you - knowing that you will have to love them from afar.
An acknowledgement that you will be diverging on a path despite having come from the same place.
🔍 reviews & rabbit holes
I usually write reviews of all the books I read and post on Goodreads (add me!) and Storygraph (here too!). And then I post a pared-down version on my own Instagram. I don’t read enough books on a regular basis to have many reviews to write (blaming it on the burnout again), but I do know however, that I listen to a shit ton of podcasts.
I also do know that we’re in a moment of reckoning again with the industry where podcast recommendations and 5-star reviews are necessary to prove audience life, and for the shows to keep going. So I’ve decided to add podcast reviews here that will go the show’s page on my podcast provider. (I use Apple Podcasts - also a big reason how I got on the Apple train - this was before Spotify was a thing.)
‘Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso’ (Apple, Spotify)
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I usually get my podcast recommendations from other podcasts, so how I found this show also has a story. I was listening to a Longform (another great podcast! Would likely review in the future) episode, and it was the Talk Easy host’s Sam Fragoso’s episode. I’d never heard of him or his show but what merits a shoutout is the intimate interview style of both these podcasts. Given that, the style of an interview podcast is usually quite straightforward as well. So imagine the hilarity of an unexpected twist! When host Max Linksy comes clean halfway through the interview that shifts everything else into gear. In response, Sam was incredibly thoughtful, sweet and just so gracious. I was sold! The episode was barely over before I had subscribed to ‘Talk Easy’ and could not wait to jump into my first episode.
It’s easy to be cynical about a show that books A-listers and to ascribe that that’s why they’re successful, but this is not that show. The guests on the show run the gamut: from actors and directors, to authors and creatives, photographers and activists - it literally is an interview show for people from all walks of life. And usually a show like this sells its appeal with its guest, but what makes it all worth it, and why those guests are worth listening to, is really only because of Sam.
You’ll be hard-pressed to find an interviewee subject of Sam’s who won’t respond in some way shape or form to the level of research he has done on them. Almost all of them (so far for me) have been impressed, or in disbelief - it’s usually the part of the interview where they peel back a little extra layer, only because Sam and his curiosity makes them feel so safe. And he GOES there with them.
I, too, have an emotional attachment to this show because of my entry episode to it. It was incidentally, Ke Huy Quan’s re-run after he had won the Academy Award. At this point, he was already on the Oscar’s circuit, but it was his empathic description of his second act, that spoke to me at the time. I was where I was describing at the beginning of this newsletter. Uninspired and demoralised, but also keenly aware that this was not where I was meant to be, but with no idea how I was going to get somewhere. I remembered crying, listening to Ke talk about how he just kept going, and how he was propped up by the people in his life who loved him.
In hindsight, it sounds so incredibly hokey, but truly, it has been worth it to have this podcast feed in my rotation. And I absolutely recommend you add it to yours.
Sam is such a gentle and incisive interviewer, it’s hard to believe how young he is (he’s not even 30!). My favourite episodes so far are Michelle Williams, Poorna Jagannathan, Min Jin Lee, ‘The Bear’ writer Alex O’Keefe (this was a good one on the WGA strike), Ramy Youssef, Jenny Odell, Jon Bernthal. The only reason why there aren’t more is only because I’ve only really started listening to it.
Check it out and tell me what you think. :)
IG: @lynnegweeny | 💌: lynnegweeny@gmail.com