2024-09-13
The second week in which I have watched for the Friday a film, and an odd feeling: it is less emotionally evocative than last week. Yet, still incredibly cute as a movie. In a way, I would love to be a cat.
It seems to be a common theme, or idea, for movies that there is a separate world just for cats. They hold some captivating presence; perhaps that they seem to go off and disappear, and reappear only to feed or to sleep occasionally. They are so independent, yet dependent in a way too...
I made a hot chocolate for myself as I watched it. I've been having hot chocolate quite a bit lately, and really been enjoying it. I use cocoa powder, the sort used for baking, with a couple teaspoons of sugar to make it palatable, and either soya or oat milk depending on what I have. Really, I understand that for all the joy that it fills me with, chocolate is produced in a rather explotative way; I really should let this pass, and not do it... at least not too much. I guess as for myself, I can never really be too happy. I wish I could almost think less. Just to enjoy chocolate with that innocent, childish, girly enjoyment. Instead, I am always thinking about depressing matters. It seems I really can't come to be content with the materials that are cute in that way; anything soft and fluffy fills me with a pain that I am a part of the problem by partaking in it.
What do I feel this time? There is a KitKat bar in the cupboard, and I really wanted to have it... of course, it is neither vegan nor is it moral to eat chocolate in that way. It's double evil; triple by way of the packaging, quadruple for the damage to my health. And yet I took it up to my room to eye it up, to consider the pleasure I would get from eating it... That was a thought occurring as I watched the film. It's a bad thing for me to do, and I know, though I would enjoy the chocolate so very much, I would feel a pain for eating it; I would be a part of the problem, I feel like. It's all well and good to say that the damage is already done, and that it's a victimless crime, and that no one would ever find out (unless I confess it on a public platform... wait... I'd make a terrible criminal) but of course, I guess I couldn't manage it in the end. I'm going to go downstairs after this and return it to the cupboard, where it will not get eaten for months and months, if ever...
Ah. It's a Friday and I messed up at work again, or really, another one of my blunders is going to catch up with me next week. It's fine. I am gradually improving but there is a lot to do, and I just need to tolerate that there is a certain degree to which I am just doing it wrong. I need to keep on trying to improve, of course, but also not to beat myself up too much. These movie nights engender a tenderness I feel like; the film is so soft, so cute, so gentle, so kind, I almost can't help but be a little softer on myself for seeing it. In that way it has some kind of good effect.
Japanese is a lovely language. I can honestly understand it quite well in these films, to the extent that I wonder if I should just forego subtitles... then, that will mean I have to concentrate a little more when I watch them. Not sure if good or not. Probably good, but also somewhat unappealing when I just want to relax, and enjoy the film.
The book I ordered in Italian has arrived today: Il Nome della Rosa, by Umberto Eco. My mum said it's a very difficult book to read, and of course I am no good in Italian, but it will make for good practise nonetheless. Or just something to keep me amused. The days are going by quickly, and I've not long until I am to go to Italy. A month minus a day. It'll be fun, but I can't help but feel I'm putting too much pressure on myself to be fluent in a language I have not looked at at all until a fortnight ago.
Tomorrow I'm going to spend the day by the sea, sketching. It'll be fun, even if what I draw is disappointing. It'll be a chance to relax. I'll take the bike with me, too. I could have lunch somewhere, or whatever it might be. It'll be good, though. I wonder how much I will enjoy it. It will be rather understimulating, which in a way is nice, and in another could feel quite cold. I guess there is a certain pleasure in that, too.
But as for cats, would it be nice? In a way. The human condition is quite cruel; life is perpetually horrid in a way that is pernicious. Almost, it seems like, one either suffers a genuine trouble, such as poverty, or bereavement, or one suffers from the torture of the mind. I am in a good position; I have everything perfect, more or less; still, I am harassed by my mind, that tells me that I am bad at my work, and do not do enough, and that everything that I do is immoral, wrong in some or another way, that everything I do is riddled with failure, is not worth presenting to the world, is not good, is not worthy of pride. Yet I feel such hubris! Almost, it seems like everything is in a state of disarray, and that everything I do is wrong. I am paralysed by the judgement of my own mind. I am socially awkward, but largely am troubled not by others, but by the thoughts of my mind, my overactive mind, that tells me I do such perpetual wrong. For instance, a corn I found in my cupboard had gone mouldy and is clearly not edible; I tell myself I am doing wrong by wasting money and food. Yet, I did not know it would go off that quickly! I almost cannot do any right, by my mind. If these movies - and they are gentle movies, children's movies almost - are any help to me, it is a certain gentility that they have. I need to be more gentle with myself. How many prescriptions have I stated, and I cannot even enumerate them? Again, critical, again.
I'm worked up a little now, against the effect of the film. It was really pleasant, though. I need to go shopping, so I'll leave it here. Perhaps the effect of writing at this point is negative; perhaps I write to work myself up, to get enough to write about, and this requires me to energise myself, in a negative direction it always seems to be... There is so little I understand of myself, I wish I could only understand...
I'll go to the shops. Have a good one.