Consuming new media, by reading or watching or playing or listening or whatever, is an important part of any creative person’s life. You need new input, after all, to avoid stagnating. Something fresh to liven up your mind and shake the cobwebs from your soul. The Oatmeal, of fart joke and semi-inspiring illustrated essay fame, called it “breathing in.” A whole host of other creative types have likened it to feeding your creative body/soul. I like to think of it as enrichment in my enclosure since I often feel like a zoo animal these days, pacing around my apartment as one of the last observers of the horrible illness still looming over the world no matter how hard everyone tries to ignore it, and wishing I could be free again. I struggle to keep up a healthy diet of new media, though. It’s difficult to be in the right frame of mind for something new all the time. I’m often too tired to invest myself in anything and while I do plenty of new-to-me stuff, playing a different combat class in Final Fantasy 14 doesn’t really count, nor does something Pokopia because while both are fun and stimulating, neither really feels “new” or really gives me much to think about when I’m not playing them. And not everything needs to give me that, but I really do benefit from having something new and interesting to chew on. Right now, most of that is coming in the form of Dorohedoro Season 2 and my slow rewatch of Frieren as I meander my way toward Season 2 of that. And also Trigun: Stargaze. I also have a pile of books and movies to watch, other shows on my to-watch list, and a host of unplayed video games. I just… have a difficult time overcoming the inertia of my established habits and tend to just fall back into those when I’m too tired to really figure out what I want to do.

Breathing in and out… while it was an idea that appealed to me once, I’m not sure I like it anymore. Breathing is something you NEED to do pretty much constantly in order to keep living. I am not going to die if I don’t create and take-in new media. I’ve learned as much through experience of the past few years of isolation and increasing burnout. Heck, even feeding myself isn’t a great metaphor, maybe, because you can live off a lot of junk and vitamins if you need to. I mean, it’s closer, since there’s a lot of work you can do when comparing media intake to a “healthy” diet, but I’m still not going to die if I don’t consume or create stuff. Hell, there are even times when I might be happier if I don’t consume or create for a while since sometimes I’m still better served by doing nothing rather than pushing myself into something new. Honestly, it’s kinda like chopping firewood. Tends to happen in bursts though it’d definitely be better for me if I could get into a sustainable daily habit, I won’t die if I don’t chop firewood or burn it in a fire, but there’s definitely days I’d be better off if I did, and sometimes the answer to how you’re feeling is to not chop wood or build a fire because either one of those would overwhelm (or overheat) you.

All of which feels like a really elaborate way of saying “I think I need more new media in my life but I’m struggling to find a place for it since I don’t have the time and energy to really engage with most existing media, let alone new stuff.” Which is what’s going on at the heart of this. I know I need at least some intake of new stories to keep myself occupied and stimulate the old mind/imagination, but it’s difficult to find the energy for that when I’m this burned out and tired all the time. And it also feels weird that those things factor into my decision-making process at all, but that’s burnout for you. Burnout and depression. Makes it difficult to enjoy the things you like and the only reason I’m not struggling to stay occupied at all is because I’ve got Final Fantasy 14 to fall back on. Which… might not be helping things? Or maybe it’s a good gauge of how I’m doing. The better I’m doing, the more stuff I do that isn’t Final Fantasy 14. The worse I’m doing, the more I play FF14. But that’s also not entirely accurrate because I will probably be playing FF14 a lot in the next couple weeks as I wrap up my goals for the current patch and then dig into the stuff coming out next week, in the next patch. I don’t know. I don’t have a good answer for any of this.

It helps that I’ve got Dorohedoro and Frieren to watch, since those are both compelling enough and easily accessed, when I can muster up enough drive to not just stay locked into Final Fantasy 14, but I also have a growing pile of books to read and a growing list of podcast episodes to listen to. I really need to get myself back into my old intake habits. I just… I also need to wade my way out of this depressive episode. I mean, I’m so down in the dumps that I don’t even miss my podcasts and I can count on zero fingers the number of times I’ve let episodes of Friends At The Table pile up like this when I wasn’t specifically saving them for a road trip (and even then I only actually managed to save them up once). It just… It’s difficult to overcome this exhaustion. It’s difficult to not just fall into the same old habits of playing this one game no matter how bad I feel because at least I’m not sitting on my couch, trying to figure out what to play or do because everything I think of sounds awful. At least I’m doing something, even if I end some nights so tired it’s a struggle to get myself out of my chair. Hopefully this will turn around soon. Hopefully the sunlight and warmth will help me out of this funk. Hopefully this isn’t my antidepressants starting to fail me. I wish there was an easier way to figure that bit out other than “stop taking them” since that seems like more of a risk than I’m willing to take.