my mind's gone drifting again
The paper I'm researching and writing today is entirely focused on the careful balance between writing about trauma in a productive manner and ruminating on trauma in a way that leads toward depression (also applicable towards any other life concerns that don't necessarily merit the word trauma). While I don't have any serious trauma, I certainly spend a lot of time ruminating and engaging in the "moody pondering" against which Pennebaker & Co. so actively warn. But you know what? I don't have time or space or energy to write- thinking about my troubles is much easier but ultimately less effective.
So I'm going to write this whole paper explaining why the rape account/follow-up book Aftermath by Susan Brison falls a bit short of the lofty goals she claims because in spite of an entire book written about her trauma, she doesn't really approach the content in the therapeutically necessary manner and so ends up only slightly better than she begain, despite decades of thought and creative force. And so that makes me a shitty person because there's no way to really separate out criticism of the style and process from criticism of content when dealing with a subject like a trauma victim's account of experience, or at least it feels that way, and also I am a shitty person because I'm a total hypocrite when it comes to employing the methods I am advocating.
Other than this depressing endeavor I'm about to begin, Reading/Finals week is going okay. No breakdowns, no alcohol, no drugs beyond vitamins and ibuprofen- I think I exhausted myself in the weeks preceding this one. When I finish my schoolwork, I'll have to start thinking about my life beyond books and that might suck, but I'm not there yet.
So I'm going to write this whole paper explaining why the rape account/follow-up book Aftermath by Susan Brison falls a bit short of the lofty goals she claims because in spite of an entire book written about her trauma, she doesn't really approach the content in the therapeutically necessary manner and so ends up only slightly better than she begain, despite decades of thought and creative force. And so that makes me a shitty person because there's no way to really separate out criticism of the style and process from criticism of content when dealing with a subject like a trauma victim's account of experience, or at least it feels that way, and also I am a shitty person because I'm a total hypocrite when it comes to employing the methods I am advocating.
Other than this depressing endeavor I'm about to begin, Reading/Finals week is going okay. No breakdowns, no alcohol, no drugs beyond vitamins and ibuprofen- I think I exhausted myself in the weeks preceding this one. When I finish my schoolwork, I'll have to start thinking about my life beyond books and that might suck, but I'm not there yet.