{"id":1625,"date":"2020-10-11T10:50:59","date_gmt":"2020-10-11T17:50:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/?p=1625"},"modified":"2020-10-11T10:50:59","modified_gmt":"2020-10-11T17:50:59","slug":"two-weeks-in-the-life-october-11-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digitalmanticore.com\/?p=1625","title":{"rendered":"Two Weeks in the Life: October 11, 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The last two weeks were a bit of a blur. I mentioned in my last post that my mother in law (and her dogs) would be staying with us. That turned out to be very challenging. She is starting to lose her mental faculties, which was hard to witness and deal with compassionately. I didn’t realize this was an issue when we agreed to letting her stay, so it was a lot more than I was prepared to deal with. We also divided the house in half for the duration to keep her dogs on one side and my cats on the other, which was stressful for entirely different reasons. In any case, this is now behind us and I’m happy to get back to my usual routines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consuming<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Here are some things I’ve recently read, watched, or bought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Books and Other Words<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I read what is sure to become the definitive work on my generation, called Can’t Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation<\/a>. I was a nodding along and highlighting so many things as I read this because it resonated with me so much. Anne Helen Petersen (a name you may recognize since I link to her writing often) describes how many middle-class Millennials grew up conceptualizing themselves as a “walking college resume” and that hustling and striving has become a constant drive. If you don’t succeed, you didn’t care enough or try hard enough. While we were busy optimizing ourselves, the generations ahead of us destroyed the social safety net. All our striving hasn’t gotten us anywhere and now we’re exhausted. As Petersen notes, “It’s the millennial way: if the system is rigged against you, just try harder.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have so, so many thoughts about this book. I remember feeling disappointed with myself in college because I realized I hadn’t been working hard enough at being a walking resume. I should have done more clubs, networked harder, volunteered. My parents set me up for many opportunities, but didn’t really understand the rules of optimizing their children. In my 20s, I started correcting this, assuming I could just hustle hard enough, learn enough, do enough to get a job and live the dream. But now, like the Millennials Petersen interviews in Can’t Even, I’m disillusioned with it. No one should work so hard at the expense of being a human. I consider myself very lucky to have found a good job that doesn’t demand my entire soul (Petersen: “a good job is one that doesn’t exploit you and you don’t hate”), but the urge to try harder to make sure the system doesn’t fuck me is still there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AS for fiction, I read A Witch in Time<\/a> by Constance Sayers. I was excited for this book because witches and time travel sounds like a winning combination, plus I’d heard good things. I did get invested in the story and I liked in on some levels, but on others I wasn’t totally feeling it. The main character, rather than traveling through time, is trapped in a curse and forced to be relive her life while bound to a man she thought she loved (but who is of course a huge asshole). I thought the present-day version of the protagonist was insufferably bourgeois, but her past lives were fairly interesting. The biggest turn offs for me in this book were that all her actions revolved around men. Come on, you are a witch and all your want to do is be sad about men? What’s the point? Go blow shit up instead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n