Hi everybody. Felix here. At the time of writing this, it is 1:24 in the morning on 10/29/2023.

First of all, I’ve been stuck on what to write about for the next large scale blog post. I’ve been quite busy with MoMuNo writing and I would like to get back to working on personal projects. Here’s a list of things that I at least have some kind of content written for. Let me know what you think and if there are any ideas that you would like to see in particular.

• Akira Kurosawa’s Ran: Color, Spectacle, Tragedy. This would be an article about Akira Kurosawa’s legendary King Lear adaptation Ran, the circumstances of its creation, and what makes it perhaps the peak of Kurosawa’s career
• “The Wild Beasts” of painting and how to throw a pot of paint into the public: An article about the short lived Fauvism movement, the iconic works from it and why it still leaves a lasting legacy today.
• A Discussion on Ancient Greek Music: It is exactly what you think it says. For this one I may reach for an interview with a professor at my university to discuss this topic
• Évariste Galois: Activist, mathematician, rebel. Part 2. Part 2 of my series on Galois. It will involve far more drama, fighting and of course math. Since this is something I was very proud to have poured effort into if I decide to work on this it would be a slightly longer than usual wait
• Comedy, chocolate, and me. The unbearable lightness of love and hate.: This one is…. weird.
• Ideas?

So yeah, I’ve got about 5 ideas or so of things to write. Like I said, if there are any that you would be particularly interested in seeing let me know. Otherwise I’ll probably just pick randomly.

On to the next section

A petite personal essay about what writing recently has meant to me

I’ve struggled with a lot of mental health over the years. I’m not going on a limb to say “I have depression” or something because I have never been formally diagnosed but it’s always been pretty tough.

Recently, I have begun writing poetry again. I joked to myself that I knew that my sadness had to be getting worse if I was getting to the point where I was publishing moody poems on my website (dm me if you want to check it out).

As much as I joke, there is a kind of comfort in the power of the poem. Writing nonfiction is fun but it requires so much work. I need to think of a topic, research, organize and structure posts, fact check and so much more. The power of the poem is that there are no rules

While nonfiction language is the medium in which I forge my creation, in poetry language is the creation. There is a strength and a comfort to the way in which it listens to my commands, works with me and adapts as I shape what I want to do with it. I can make a poem in 5 minutes or I can spend a week hammering it out. I can write a four quatrain or The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. Poetry feels so freeing of even fiction writing. For fiction writing I still have to conform to the bare minimum of plot, characters, and so on to a certain extent. Poetry represents language at its most vital down to single words and line breaks unspoiled by the encroachments of our modern lexicon.

One of my favorite pieces is Hannah Gamble’s The Average Fourth Grader Is a Better Poet Than You (and Me Too). One of the most powerful quotes from that is “The poet’s job is to forget how people do it.” To write good poetry you have to learn to let go of our biases, our conventions, what we’re used to doing what we’re supposed to be doing. There is comfort in it too. As I have lost more and more friends, faced overwhelming challenges, and cried so much I have turned to my computer and an empty word doc more and more. I’ve written some of the most beautiful if not the most beautiful poems of my life while feeling this way. I’m not saying that you have to be sad while writing poems. pineapple. But, channeling any kind of strong emotion will help.

It is 1:46 AM. I am beginning to doze off. Let’s finish this up shall we?

I’ll share a poem from my secret doc. Just because I felt like it

the answer

the answer is always simple it always has been there it dangles and taunts and mocks it sits at the edge of the bed right outside your reach it lies on the ceilings at night and the corner of filthy shower corners and rooms of smiling people and the brief moments where time stops and you breathe for what feels like the first time in your life before you hold your breath and dive back into the dark sea again

the most important thing about writing poetry is not caring it’s stupid.

Yeah, if you look back the language is weird. It’s corny. It’s cringe. Whatever. I write what I want to write and that is the power of it. There is nobody in this world who can tell me what I cannot write down for myself and that is a freedom you never get anywhere else.

I don’t really know what I want to do in the future. I don’t even know if I’m going to make it to the next day. All I know is that no matter where I go the weight of creation will keep me grounded to the earth yet always reaching for the sky

Screaming into the Empty Content Void

I sometimes wonder if there’s a point you know?

Who am I writing these articles for? Is it for attention? It certainly isn’t that because not many people notice that. Is it for class? No, that’s not it.

I think the hardest part about making content for any platform be it podcasts, youtube, blogs etc is recognizing that 99.9% of the time people aren’t going to see your post. Even if they do, they’re most likely going to give it a skim and move on.

The challenge is to find joy in yourself. The challenge is to constantly push yourself to greater heights, to write more, to write differently, and so on. If people come and read it then that’s great. However, you can’t bank on that because you’ll never be happy. You’ll just be chasing metrics for the rest of your life until your eyes are made up of algorithms and your brain full of SEO slime. Be happy if even one person takes time out of their day, tells you they like it and that they’ll definitely be reading more.

I’m still learning that lesson. Maybe I never will. That’s okay. Sometimes we don’t have to learn to grow. Sometimes just knowing that we need to grow is good enough.

The time is 2 AM. By the way. I put a little word out of place in the story, to see if anybody actually paid attention. DM me if you find it. Good night.