pond

I realised recently that I've let myself become an anxious mess in the past few years, and I won't get into it now because I don't really want to talk about it, but in short, I'm a chronic worrier and it's starting to get a little self-destructive.

On one of our flights, my brother had a book with him that he'd bought back in Europe, called Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett. I didn't really have anything to read so while he slept I snuck about 40 pages. It's been two or three weeks since I read the beginning of that book, but I think it stayed with me... this sense of folding towels and eating breakfast and opening the windows to let the air and light in, of living alone and having this space in which thoughts swim and things are quiet and you can do laundry by yourself.

Our house has been in a state of unprecedented mess ever since we returned from China, because we've been too busy to tidy up and also in general we just have too much Stuff. Yesterday I had a breakdown because I couldn't stop thinking about the mess and the clutter, and it stressed me out to no end. Everywhere I looked there was something to be done. I had to do something right then and there. But I couldn't, because it's a family house, and I can't just go in and start sorting things out because different objects belong to different people, and my parents have their own system and plan. So I just sat there, crying and shaking and feeling really upset. A small part of it, I think, was to do with the latent feelings of peace and serenity that I got from reading Pond. Before my stress got the better of me, I was taking clothes off the drying rack and folding them, sorting them into different piles for different people. And then I went to the washing machine to get the latest load to hang up, and that's when I couldn't handle it anymore. Part of me started thinking again about the comfort of routine in Pond, and the voice of the narrator and all that. Just this idea of this little stone cottage somewhere in Ireland (I guess) in a small town, and a young woman with no apparent employment and a lot of furniture, sweeping the floor.

Pond is a really mesmerising book, it draws you in even though it's about nothing, because it's about nothing. I picked it up again even though I really should be reading The Tiger Flu. It's so calming. The narrator also has thoughts that never stops, but because she's in a space (her house) that she completely controls, and because she's in control of her life, she just lets her thoughts run wherever they want. Here's a quote I really like that I find quite relatable:

"Quite often I'm terribly disappointed by how things turn out, but that's usually my own fault for the simple reason that I'm too quick to conclude that things have turned out as fully as it is possible for them to turn, when in fact, quite often, they are still on the turn and have some way to go until they have turned out completely."

I think that probably sums up almost every single thing I've ever been anxious about.

the idiot

Saw this meme online and it really reminds me of The Idiot by Elif Batuman, and the character of Selin. There's a key moment in the book where Svetlana tells Selin that both of them see their lives and experiences as part of a narrative about their lives, which means that other people they encounter aren't perceived as real human beings but rather as side characters - which leads Svetlana to conclude that two such people cannot truly be close, and instead such people should be close with normal people. That's why The Idiot feels like an absurd or surrealist novel even though it's entirely set in the real world - it's because of Selin's voice and how removed from reality she is, because she's constantly turning everything she sees into a narrative.

glenn greenwald

Been reading this massive New Yorker article about Glenn Greenwald, so I just want to note some stuff down. I definitely agree with what he has to say about the Trump-Russia thing, because a lot of this hysteria over Russian interference stinks of people trying to absolve the US of responsibility... like at the end of the day an overwhelming amount of Americans voted Trump, especially college-educated middle-class white people. It's like this outcry over the ICE separation of families that calls it "un-American", when based on history that's actually the most American thing there is. But both Gabriel (to whom I sent the article) and I agree that Greenwald has some pretty serious anger control issues, easily revealed in the way he talks about small family conflicts ("I wanted to drown them in the pool"). Although he's extremely intelligent and strikingly observant, he often gets angry and goes on a reckless rant that hyperbolises and generalises, which is directly broadcast to his audiences without even going through an editor, and which he is too proud to retract or modify once he has calmed down. This not only makes him come off as aggressive, confrontational, and irrational, thus discrediting the actually interesting and thought-provoking things he has to say, but also leads to misunderstanding of facts.