Ooof, My Mind

I'm quite tired. Mentally. I feel tired mentally.

I feel like I want to take a break from really intense reading and writing. I have been going really consistently with my reading and writing for quite a while now.

I think I should probably read some fiction. Read some poetry or something.

I've been reading so much nonfiction for the last year. So much philosophy.

I've been writing so much. Since last year I've produced so much writing.

Sometimes I wonder about my output. How much I am producing quality writing. The quantity of my writing is clear. But the quality is not clear. I wonder.

But since I finished Zizek's In Defense Of Lost Causes I have felt intellectually strained, tired. It is just fascinating and troubling to encounter a book that is in many ways beyond my immediate comprehension. I think if I studied the book, when I study the book, I'll be able to grasp what is going on with more nuance. But it is just amazing to look at books that are so difficult so strange.

This AZI project has been so taxing, too. I have produced a whole lot of writing since September. One writing project, just for fun. No plans to even attempt to publish it. That would be silly. It is just an enormous amount of writing that I have done for myself. As an exploration, as an exercise. But part of me wonders if I should just be reading seriously and not writing so much.

The relationship between my reading and my writing is quite strange.

I write so that I can understand what I read and what I think.

I don't write because I understand things.

I write because I want to understand things.

Derp.

Right now I'm reading a book called Foucault On Freedom. Johanna Oksala is the author. I am pleased to be reading about Foucault, and to find her analysis of Foucault to be substantial. She definitely is arguing things about Foucault that I have felt, have talked about, but haven't been able to put the same way that she is.

I feel like Zizek's book in many ways is against the type of work that Foucault was doing. Zizek is looking for bigger, stronger thought. Less about the resistance of individual minds and bodies and more about radical emancipatory politics.

I just feel my thoughts spread too thin right now.

I need to give myself a breather.

I need to relax mentally.

I should read a novel.