Weekly Newsletter 04
Taking antibiotics and therefore having to focus on the little things in life
Another week, another weekly newsletter. I am really enjoying writing these texts and love that it has become part of my weekly routine. From the feedback that has reached me, I believe you enjoy it as well and I am incredibly happy about it. So lets keep going with another week of commentary :)
Weekly update 01 - Being seriously ill
No matter which decade you are in, you may fall sick. Of course, here, the decade does matter (or more so the century) and I am happy to be alive after the Penicillin revolution since these 6-aminopenicillanic acids have nursed my body back to health.
My serious pain, fever and shivers of hot and cold could have been prevented by going to the doctor earlier but I chose to ignore the pain that was getting worse and worse until I had to go to emergency. The funny part is that I thought my intense back pain was because of my new bike which has my back leaning forward and cause sore muscles, when it actually was the bacterial infection spreading into my kidneys. So, this week’s advice: Take your pain serious.
90s challenge
I am still off of all social media, YouTube, Netflix and all other pages you can imagine. So far, so good. However, I have been slacking with googling things on the spot and listening to songs I was craving. Can we blame it on my dire state (now I wanna listen to Dire Straits!) in which I was the past week? Because truthfully laying awake in between fever dreams just needs certain songs. My fever-dream playlist was New York by St.Vincent, Fukk Sleep and A$AP Forever by A$AP Rocky, Time by Tom Waits, Stop & Stare by One Republic, SAN MARCOS by Brockhampton, Ride by Lana del Rey and The Night We Met by Lord Huron - a compilation that may be a fever dream in itself.
Other than that I am drawing a positive conclusion after one month of living in the technological world of the 90s. In fact, it has not been as demanding as expected. At the same time, it also feels like it has changed very little. I feel like a lot of digital detox videos proclaim a mental clarity and change of heart but I guess I am either overwhelmed at heart or need more time to feel effects. It definitely is nice to procrastinate less. Maybe it is what Astrid said to Hiccup in How to tame your Dragon 2: “What you're searching for isn't out there, Hiccup. [Puts her hand to Hiccup's chest] It's in here.“ And with this quote, I admit to another break of the rules: I watched 2000s movies. Never would I have thought that 2000s movies would be a rule-breaking action and it would be the last thing I would have expected to have difficulty abstaining from. But, to feel better when I was sick I craved some feel-good DreamWorks Animation where just the opening of the boy on the moon fishing for clouds offers you sentiment.
To sum it up, my goal for next week is to challenge myself not to look up things right away, to write things down in my notebook instead and to make sure to actually and fully follow the 90s challenge again. Now that I know social media is not a problem, I am setting myself two bigger long-term goals, which sound more serious than they might be: 1) Altering my time-perception as in not needing things right away, being able to wait and becoming more patient. 2) Retrain my need for consumption of media and digital technologies.
A fun fact on the theme of the technological world of the 90s
According to John Green in his book The Anthropocene Reviewed: Essays on a Human-Centered Planet, the first widespread internet conspiracy theory was the idea that the Middle Ages never existed. This is also known as the Phantom Time Hypothesis generated by the German critic of chronology Heribert Illig in 1991. Apparently, a pope and emperors of the time added multiple hundreds of years to the calendar for their reign to be longer and a German history and chemistry professor wrote a supportive paper coming to the conclusion that we count 300 years too much in time. No matter what we come to, I would say the Ethiopians have time right. It takes righteousness to never be colonised and sticking to your own time with a few years difference.
Anyways, the Phantom Time Hypothesis is definitely worth a read on Wikipedia.
Weekly update 02 - The little things
Since my week was mainly bed rest, I got to appreciate the little things. These things are kind of like “my orange” this week - in reference to Wendy Cope’s poem which is apparently infamous on TikTok now - or, to reference another trend, it is my “I think I like this little life.”
Suddenly, the most exciting, joyous things were an insanely big clump of connected bananas (like 20 or more?!), a substitute professor that made equally unfunny and funny jokes, meeting the neighbours because some T-shirts flew onto their balcony, reading the newspaper, watching How to tame your Dragon 1-3 and a Sunday lunch with good food, friends and cake.
Weekly recommendation 01 - Newspaper
How could I live in the 90s and not read printed newspaper? My friend texted me this week saying that taking the time to read the newspaper was a recent routine upgrade of his. So this recommendation is also his. Usually, I would buy at least a magazine at the beginning of the challenge.
So, I got myself my favourite newspaper out of what was available to me from English and German options in Spain and had a read and I have many thoughts about it. (First thought: It really takes a lot of time to read through the entire newspaper. It’s insane.) And, with little surprise, my friend was absolutely right. It seems silly writing about newspaper as something revolutionary or newly discovered. I know better to know that it is not. However, it seems like it has to be rediscovered. I feel that if I were to pull out a newspaper I would receive curious looks with a little irony or ridicule attached to it that (in an old people voice) say “What’s that girl doing reading the news?” The newspaper today is kind of like when some music marketing firms tried to make cassettes happen after Vinyl was booming: Our generation may read books again but not a physical copy of a newspaper. This is a bummer because just the newspaper paper is one of a kind and the sound makes it feel like a well placed prop used for an art house movie and the format is so unhandy and the thinness of the paper so ever-collapsing it makes me laugh and appreciate newspaper as an art form as much as its content.
On another probably more relevant note, it also makes you see what good reporting is all about and realise that much of the short-form, distilled information bites just don’t do it. The journalistic profession requires true skill. No social media post and few YouTube videos are as poignant and long as these articles and always start with the Politics section. In short, they make you go through it. Then again, good reporting should make you wreck your brain and heart.
Generally, I would say that at the moment there is no time for light-heartedness in the news. So maybe consider that a warning to the weight of your heart, when picking up one. Remilitarisation, Deterrence, and undemocratic Liberalism reign high among a new wave of thought that propagandises itself as “protectors of democracy” but feel more like “warriors of conservative diplomatic(= coercive) economic policies” that have switched from using the term “growth” to using the term “security” as strength once again refers to military strength not economic strength. There was an article in Die ZEIT which included an eyeopening quote on the origin of social tension based on political ideology, which seems to be the biggest problem everywhere now: “Populism is the illiberal democratic response to undemocratic Liberalism” (Cas Mudde quoted by Philip Manow). Worth a read, which you can find here.
Weekly recommendation 02 - Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
I’ve been reading quite a lot and ever since I have read Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Zevin Gabrielle, I could not pass up a book that I like better. So I would recommend you to read it. The story and topic is intriguing all while a sort of “will-they-won’t-they”-story of friendship takes place. I think many of us can relate to this idea of not knowing whether one is a friend or not, will stay a friend or not, or can be a friend or not - at least I can. I loved the quote from the book that „lovers are … common“ and, in reverse, friendships are rare. It is suspenseful or at least I couldn’t really put down the book and stop reading.
Weekly recommendation 03 - BROCKHAMPTON
Remember the BROCKHAMPTON era? I say: Bring it back! There are few albums that pushed me through my late Teenage years and could exactly distill the same amount of angst to insecurity to melancholy from being old enough to remember younger times yet too young to ever know melancholy. It is an album with mood swings that goes from screaming to slow swaying in the best way possible and will accompany me as one of my album picks for the challenge. Go listen :)
By the way, from last weeks voting I will take Pure Heroin by LORDE into my album rotation. Nice choice :)
Thank you for reading!
I hope you enjoyed the fourth instalment and I appreciate you reading and new people joining the newsletter. My best to you for the new week and stay healthy :)