So, I moved to a new city in April, and by July the boxes were unpacked. The move was a chance to shake up old patterns which have kept me so anxious and depressed, and settle into something new. I now smoke less and keep more regular hours.

I made a new rule for myself: if I think about some action I'd like to take, or which I'm worried about, and it would not cause harm to take action immediately, I must follow through right away, before doubt has the chance to put me through hell. I don't always manage to follow this rule, but somehow I am more liberated in my actions and fewer hanging to-dos torture me. This is probably not a rule that would be helpful for everyone, but my biggest issues are procrastination and stagnation, not impulsivity or inattention, so it's been helping out. I'm all obsessive-depressive, self-imprisoning energy over here.

In September, something happened that triggered my PTSD like mad. From one small trigger, suddenly the sky was falling, my life was in danger, the wicked conspiring against me were clear and present dangers. On some level, I knew that this was just trauma, fear untethered to my current reality. But at the same time, I didn't believe that I could go on. The fear was intense and my obsessive mind was able to craft complex narratives rapidly to justify it. Nothing could slow it down. I reached out to my therapist for an urgent session. He was extraordinarily firm with me about what's real, what I'd erroneously decided was probable, and some other possible reasons why I might've been so upset (new environment, ungroundedness from change). It pissed me off but he actually stopped me in my tracks a few times. Afterward, even though I was angry, I managed to slow down. Eventually I started to think about shame.

It occured to me that a fear of persecution, when not motivated by any current reality wherein you're actually being threatened or persecuted in like ways, could be motivated by shame. You know, like The Tell-tale Heart or something. And I'm well aware that my trauma is like a dumptruck of shame, prepared to tip its contents on me at the tip of a hat. So, then I think about that Brené Brown TED Talk I've been made to watch in so many classes and workshops, which has annoyed the fuck out of me every time. And it occured to me that, even though I've heard great things about Brown from plenty of people, I'd totally discredited her research because I thought her TED Talk was awful. But all TED Talks are awful! It's a hideous format. Was I really prepared to keep complaining about someone who famously studies shame, the most pernicious emotion in my life, based only on her showing in the single lowest form of public intellectual discourse? I was forced to recall that famous maoist slogan, "No investigation, no right to speak." My days of badmouthing her and getting angry to myself without trying to understand her work were soon to be behind me.

So, I get a library card (new city) and put three of her books on hold. Much to my surprise and relief, and despite the differences in our politics, they're actually helpful. Really helpful. I'm no stranger to the world of psych-affiliated para-spiritual self-improvement, so I'm sure some of that background helped her messages land, but they really did. She makes a compelling argument for the radical notion that shame is a uniquely useless and harmful emotion, and that we are all better off learning ways to recognize our feelings of shame for what they are, a fear of disconnection, and then move through those fears, rather than ever spend a second reinforcing the shame. (She makes the typical differentiation between shame and guilt. She certainly encourages accountability for one's transgressions.)

My October is then spent working through Brown's texts, and a couple other books that she recommends, which I'll get into below along with everything else. I process shame and work to develop an approach to life which honours the reality that shame wants to ensnare me in its tight grip at all times, and manage to meaningfully loosen those bonds.

In November, I have the first successful NaNoWriMo of my life. I set a goal of 1000 words every day, and every single day I manage to write over one thousand words. I now have a linear beginning to my draft, after years of scattershot fantasy, unwieldy worldbuilding documents, and bouts of vicious self-hatred and disgust at the project's flaws.

More miraculously, I am not driven insane over the month of drafting. I never lose steam. There are hurdles, but they are addressed as they come up, and I always adapt. I have managed to develop a type of routine which is comfortable, effective, and flexible. I've longed for this for years. I've wished for some magic solution. I have suffered under the delusional wish that maybe there could be a drug which would fix my "writing honest fiction is so goddamn painful I could die from it" problem. But there isn't. I discover that I don't even need to enter a trance to write. What I need is to be grounded, and to believe that the effort itself is good enough, ethical enough, in some way worthwhile and not evil.

My conclusions from this reading period are these. No one will have a perfect understanding of every aspect of the conditions in which they exist. And research, study, and sharing what you learn to the best of your abilities, always honest and humbled before reality, is a life I can stand living.

Completed readings, chronological order:

Siddhartha - Herman Hesse

I don't know enough about Buddhism to know whether this book is offensive, misleading, or silly. What I do have to admit is that as a sensitive whiteboy, it was a pretty good read.

A Small Place - Jamaica Kincaid

A perfectly crafted book that takes a day to read but lasts a very long time. If I wanted to get serious about improving my personal nonfiction, to better entwine the political with the literary, I'd go far only studying A Small Place.

"Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art" - Mao Zedong

An interesting historical materialist intervention and directive on the social role of art. I did a B.A. in English, and I left that program more confused about what "art" was than when I entered it. The main theory we were taught was a half-understood semiotics, where we were tested on our ability to memorize some semiotics 101 vocabulary-- sign, signifier, signified, intertextuality. Literature was, essentially, an intertextual discipline, mashing together different signs in the hope that some reader could make the end result meaningful.

In this, Mao offers a completely different viewpoint. He says that if our art only draws upon preexisting works, we are basically phoney artists, making works that will be dead on arrival. Life itself must be the raw material for art, not floating "signs", but real life, real people you know. At the same time, we do not need to throw away old works, and in fact these should be studied, taken as the intellectual and cultural heritage of humanity, and whatever from them is beneficial should be taken into current works.

Why do we need art at all, if life itself is its source? Because art concentrates and intensifies the raw material of life, elevates it and makes it more universal. With art, a diverse audience can see characters from their own lives, can see their own struggles reflected, and can feel a sense of unity with each other. Art builds solidarity, it makes life more beautiful and meaningful, it inspires the will to tranform one's environment for the better.

So an artist who hopes to create revolutionary art needs to get in touch with people, make friends, write characters from a place of love, make complex struggles more clear. They need to bring their life and study and work together with the goal of fortifying the best of what's around them, and to make contradictions and paths forward more clear.

This is nothing like what I was taught in school, where the whole debate around art was between "formalism" and "subjectivity", like artists could either aspire to a generic excellence in respect to the works of old masters, or to direct creative expression of their interiority. Art that spoke to real life in meaningful ways was almost accidental.

The Mass Line and the American Revolutionary Movement - Scott Harrison

An ambitious theoretical text and clear exposition of a maoist political philosophy. The "mass line" is a strategy for political organization which is designed to keep an organization both radically democratic and genuinely committed to revolution. It involves collecting ideas from the people whom the organization serves, about what direction they think the organization would be best to move in (everything from the most general to the most granular and practicable input). Then, the organization analyzes these ideas according to a historical materialist study of the situations to which they would be applied, predicting their likely outcomes should they be acted upon (based on historical precedent in similar circumstances, accounting for as many factors as possible). Finally, the ideas which seem to have the most practical value for a positive, revolutionary outcome are returned to the people and acted upon, which subjects the ideas to both public scrutiny and a test of their practical value. The process starts again as the organization collects more feedback in response to their prior actions, as well as new situations that have developed.

This process sounds simple enough but can easily be distorted, and is rife for conflict, as all democratic processes are. What Scott Harrison has done is raise practical philosophical considerations from a well-meaning and sober place. On this read, I appreciated Harrison's work on definitions most of all, where he refuses to take common left terms for granted and actually commits to breaking them down, such as in the way he explicates the concept of "the masses". In the future, I'd be interested to study and discuss this text within an existing organization, to see how it can be applied to orgs which are already doing meaningful work serving people. Because I don't think this book can provide the basis for an ambitious group that's just starting out from a theoretically revolutionary place (and maybe nothing can help a group like that beyond study and making friends). It seems like it would be much stronger if brought into an org that's already doing good work and wants to move in a more radical direction.

"FYMA: A Lesser Key to the Appropriation of Jewish Magic & Mysticism" - Ezra Rose

I had never read any history of Crowley or the Golden Dawn people, and this zine contextualizes them within a history of the Christian occult practice of making up weird shit about Jewish people and then romanticizing that projected shadow. Essential reading and got me thinking really hard about the way new-age, occult, and hippie shit can function as a sublimated racist mindscape of the practitioner.

Vancouver: A Visual History - Bruce Macdonald

I hope there are similar books about wherever you live. It's a series of annotated maps of the greater Vancouver region, from the pre-colonial period through to the 1980s. Macdonald takes an objective posture, which is whatever, but the information as presented is of great political value. And it has laid a strong foundation for my understanding of this occupied space.

A number of readings from professor Adnan Husain's free online course The Crusading Society.

I have no background in medieval history, so this course has been quite challenging and enlightening for me. Prof Adnan says that he plans to make it publicly available in some manner once it's done, and I highly recommend checking the VODs out whenever he puts them up. And, if he mounts the course again, sign up. It's been great. The most valuable aspect of Adnan's teaching is how we dig into the primary texts together. It's a dynamic and active form of reading, and so quite helpful to have some professional guidance. That guidance has helped me read the primary sources for the course more effectively even when alone.

There is a syllabus of recommended readings at the link above, but here I'll list the most substantial of the secondary texts we've been assigned so far. And, once the course is done, I'll make a post that breaks down these texts and pulls out some key arguments. (It's already in the works, but would add 2k to the wordcount of this post, so, later...)

I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn't) - Brené Brown

This is the Brené Brown book I'd heard the most about, always from people who found it really helped. You can count me among them. It's an accessible book with an attractive argument compellingly made. The argument, which has come from Brown's research, can be broken down like this. First, shame is a painful experience of feeling (or fearing) disconnection from others combined with a belief that you deserve that alienation. Second, the feeling of shame is universal to everyone who desires human connection, even if that desire is totally unconscious. Third, shaming people in the hopes of changing them is ineffective, cruel, and when it does change their behaviour it leaves other scars with dire consequences.

Lastly, and this is the bulk of the book, there are strategies you can use to grow your resilience to shame. These strategies come down to compassion, connection, and courage. Compassion is the fundamental antidote to shame. Because while shame wants to keep you isolated, neurotic and self-obsessed, compassion allows you to feel your common connection to others. And the courage Brown speaks of is the courage to know your own heart and speak from it. Frankly, as I've tried out the ideas she presents here and put them into practice, they hold water. It's not easy and I still feel ashamed like all the time but when I think and act in-line with her findings, I am more resilient to what otherwise become debilitating shame spirals.

One point of interest is that this book is explicitly from her research with a diverse body of women, and she speaks to women's experiences of shame, as they are socially and culturally reinforced and, to some extent, determined. One of the last chapters is an addendum where she discusses her less-thorough research with men. She says that the emotion of shame is fundamentally the same for women and men, but that the social expectations which mold shame triggers are clearly different. As a trans guy, I feel like the web of shaming social expectations around me is especially tight, like I'm getting squeezed by every gendered expectation. So, although this book is clearly written for an audience of cis women, (Brown is not a transphobe, at least not any more than most well-meaning people, but I've named the audience for this book accurately), I think anybody willing to read creatively will find the text interesting at least, and probably will find resonance with it.

The Gifts of Imperfection - Brené Brown

This one is less research-y and much more self-improvement oriented. There's a good deal of spirituality in it as well. I found it an extremely helpful follow-up to the other Brown. It helped me to develop a routine for myself, working things into my day to improve my life as I read along.

The Places that Scare You - Pema Chödrön

The most incredible Buddhism-for-beginners type book I've read. Chödrön's approach, which follows a particular Tibetan Buddhist spiritual-intellectual lineage, is the boldest I've encountered. Chödrön challenges you to take the warrior's path, to wake up by leaning into the most difficult, tumultuous experiences and feelings in your life. She dares you to feel compassion for others. This is all balanced with a sober understanding of the need for self-compassion and gentleness. Could not recommend this book more, especially if you've been a little turned off by meditation books that are too feel-good or too esoteric. This book is grounded and straightforward, and it doesn't feel good or bad, it feels consequential.

Atlas of the Heart - Brené Brown

A glossary of emotions and related mental experiences. Although there are things about this book that I did not appreciate or enjoy, it does draw useful distinctions between related mental phenomena. My ability to name my emotions has improved after studying it. Some of the politics in it are half-baked but honestly, whatever.

Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy - Barbara Ehrenreich

Ahh!!! Hard to know what to say about this one. It's entertaining pop history, saying things that I like to hear. The book seems to be written for people like me, white New Age types nostalgic for ecstatic, enthusiastic collective practices. Ehrenreich has not written a book that dispenses any kind of New Age spirituality, but if I had a magic shop, this book would be on the shelves. This is all to say that I am a little bit skeptical, and the book seems biased by its love for collective joy. Anthropological writings on tribal cultures are read against the grain of their white chauvinist sneering, but the resulting reinterpretation is still uncomfortable to read. A positive revision of a racist text is going to veer into a romanticism which also has its issues, right? How can we know what's true? I'm bearing in mind the problematic which Ezra Rose drew out in FYMA.

Also, the description of early-medieval European mass joy in the traditions of Carnival are quite fun, but we are also given one small aside that during Carnival it was unsafe for Jews in Europe to even leave the house. There are complications to her narrative which are admitted but glossed-over and I really don't know what to make of it. I did, however, have a fun time reading.

It also pointed me towards some interesting happenings in second century Phrygia, which I'm already following up on with the intention of making good future use of them.

Comfortable with Uncertainty - Pema Chödrön

Meh. This isn't a book crafted by Chödrön, it's a book compiled by an editor, working from other texts which Chödrön has already published in full. The editor has turned complete works into fragments, and I just don't think it does the author or reader any favours.

The New Penguin Atlas of Ancient History - Colin McEvedy

Bruce Macdonald shouted out this book in the intro to Vancouver: A Visual History, as an inspiration for his methodology. It is the first in a series which traces ancient to modern mediterranean-and-european history. The method used, maps at the same scale over time, showing the same region shift and change, helps provide a visual basis for future study. The trouble with this book is that its pro-Western bias is clear, and the fact of it being fundamentally an imperialist history has its own issues as well. That said, it is worthwhile to know some things about the imperial structures past and present!

I was most interested in reading this series when I noticed my incredible ignorance while taking Adnan Husain's course The Crusading Society. There were just so many blanks for me, so many names of ancient places and peoples that meant nothing to me, so little knowledge of what the world was like at the time. My hope was that this book, which I plan to follow-up with the others in the series, would give me some sense of the most conventional way the history of the region is told. Even if I got some bad information from it, I think that's better than no information in this case, because there is something now there to correct.

Kindred - Octavia E. Butler

Time travel horror story about slavery, ancestry, what it means to live with history, as an actor within history, as a person subjugated by history. The important role of knowledge, its limitations. Works as straight genre fiction-- terrifying, engrossing, great characters. The thematic read is subtly drawn. White supremacist patriarchal capitalism as a system always in crisis, calling Black women to its aid even from beyond the grave. What room is left for agency? How can a modern Black woman relate to her history in a way that preserves her own being, without letting it destroy her? What does it actually take to survive, and how much will you be hurt in the process? Also one of the most harrowing, bone-crushing, real stories about the social conditions and aftermath of rape.

The particular edition I read was put out by Beacon press in 2004, and appends an unfortunate essay by Robert Crossley. In the first two pages, he makes as many serious factual errors about the contents of the text we've all just read. This got on my nerves and made me lose faith in his diligence as a reader and reliability as a writer. I'm not crazy about the cover of the book either, which shows a placid Dana almost unrecognizable from the woman we meet in the novel, and which miscategorizes the book as science fiction. Neither the cover nor the essay are how I would prefer to characterize the text. The discussion questions, however, are decent!