scrubjayspeaks (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
scrubjayspeaks) wrote2020-11-30 04:39 pm
scrubjayspeaks) wrote2020-11-30 04:39 pm
Entry tags:
Today's Keyboard Smash
Over the weekend, I finally started watching Yu Yu Hakusho again. I had loaded the files up onto the new iPad for maximum convenience--truly, the increased storage space and faster transmission time with iTunes have already paid for themselves--but I hadn't started watching yet. I turned it on for a bit while I did some cleaning, though, and that got me rolling to just watch in general.
Keep in mind, this is literally my favorite show of all time. So my reluctance to watch it felt...weird. I've never entirely understood my resistance to rewatching or rereading old favorites when it crops up. Oh, sure, watching new, unfamiliar things is obviously more of a hurdle if I'm feeling low on cope. But old favorites? What's that about?
Well, I think I figured it out, at least this time around. Even though I know the show by heart--perhaps because of that--it is capable of eliciting strong emotions. I.e. I will cry at the drop of a hat every time the characters do anything noble or charming or lovably foolish. And that's a lot of emotion to have to cope with In These Trying Times (tm).
Which explains why I've been bingeing YouTube videos for months now but can't watch movies or shows. However much I enjoy Let's Play channels or cooking videos or comedy clips, I am relatively unlike to cry over them. The strongest emotion I'm going to experience is either uncontrolled mirth or mild frustration. Mostly I'm going to be quietly amused or soothed. These videos are, if anything, a damper for emotion.
Watching something capable of eliciting a deeper response has the sensation of pins and needles as feeling returns to a numb limb. Like I've been wearing a full-body tourniquet for the last nine months. Probably accurate. Probably normal. It also doesn't surprise me, then, that writing has been more difficult than normal. Storytelling doesn't come easy if I've got my entire emotional range crammed into a shoebox, buried at the back of my mental attic.
Keep in mind, this is literally my favorite show of all time. So my reluctance to watch it felt...weird. I've never entirely understood my resistance to rewatching or rereading old favorites when it crops up. Oh, sure, watching new, unfamiliar things is obviously more of a hurdle if I'm feeling low on cope. But old favorites? What's that about?
Well, I think I figured it out, at least this time around. Even though I know the show by heart--perhaps because of that--it is capable of eliciting strong emotions. I.e. I will cry at the drop of a hat every time the characters do anything noble or charming or lovably foolish. And that's a lot of emotion to have to cope with In These Trying Times (tm).
Which explains why I've been bingeing YouTube videos for months now but can't watch movies or shows. However much I enjoy Let's Play channels or cooking videos or comedy clips, I am relatively unlike to cry over them. The strongest emotion I'm going to experience is either uncontrolled mirth or mild frustration. Mostly I'm going to be quietly amused or soothed. These videos are, if anything, a damper for emotion.
Watching something capable of eliciting a deeper response has the sensation of pins and needles as feeling returns to a numb limb. Like I've been wearing a full-body tourniquet for the last nine months. Probably accurate. Probably normal. It also doesn't surprise me, then, that writing has been more difficult than normal. Storytelling doesn't come easy if I've got my entire emotional range crammed into a shoebox, buried at the back of my mental attic.