In 2019, I resolved to return to reading for pleasure, utilizing the blocks of time I spend in transit (in an FX, the LRT), as reading periods within the day. Even while I was prone to bouts of dizziness in a moving vehicle, I endeavored to push beyond what I had called my “dizziness barrier” by taking frequent breaks every time I felt lightheaded. I managed to finish twelve books that year, discovering new favorites (Don DeLillo’s White Noise, Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking, Yukio Mishima’s The Frolic of the Beasts, Leila Slimani’s The Perfect Nanny), revisiting previously read ones (Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness, Zoë Heller’s Notes on a Scandal), and finally finishing partly-read works (Gaston Bachelard’s luminous Poetics of Space stands out).
It is a testament to my reliance on habit and structure imposed by external factors (i.e. schedules from work, deadlines, meetings, social calls, other people’s demands on my time), that I found myself unmoored in 2020 and the pandemic lockdown. For the longest time, I had relied on outside institutions and other people to structure my days and weeks, adapting to what the situation demands and inserting chunks of personal hours in-between. As I had mostly been on a cycle of freelance and project-based work, I thought myself to be quite adaptable. But if in the past I resisted the Monday to Friday, 8AM to 5PM routine, finding it to be too rigid and unforgiving, I now find myself saddled with the other extreme– that is to be given a blank slate, to be asked to rely on sheer willpower to schedule all work and personal hours, and on top of these, for everything to unfold within the same, confined space of a studio unit. The condition elicited immense and strange anxieties. Perhaps I had suffered less than most people in 2020, but I suffered nonetheless. It took me more than a year to find a stable, daily working habit, only partially finding my footing in 2021. Yet even now, sudden changes in my routine can send me into a spiral of panic.
Psychically on edge and with no recourse to public transit, the reading habit I cultivated in 2019 unravelled in 2020. While I continued to read for academics, my non-work reading list had shrunk to a regrettable five items. Of these, Maggie Nelson’s Bluets stands out, not only for its quality, but also for the comfort it provided during the uncertainties of the early days of 2020. I did not manage to finish a single novel but Tillie Walden’s On a Sunbeam and Doxiadis’ and Papadimitriou’s Logicomix, both graphic novels, provided a dash of variety and intellectual distraction. Both were situated in strange settings and times, in outer space for Walden and the world of Western logicians in the early 20th century for Doxiadis and Papadimitriou. In other words, as respite from lived reality.
In 2021, driven by my emotional circumstance from the past year and the seemingly endless lockdown, I decided to avail of online therapy sessions from the University. Alongside constant support from peers and colleagues, I believe I regained a bit of my footing. While still tenuous, I consider having finished the same number of books as I did from 2019 as a good indicator, as a sign of the tides turning on my internal state. I finished the last book, Andrés Neuman’s Talking to Ourselves, only yesterday. I find myself intrigued particularly by Elena. She is the only female in the story, and yet, Neuman has provided her with complex and contradictory urges. Similar to Alberto Moravia’s protaganist in Boredom, the characters in Neuman’s work pull veils of self-justifications on their actions. Unlike Moravia, there is an undercurrent of love and affection between the characters. Despite this, they constantly misunderstand each other, pursuing their own visions of how things should be, and unblinkingly dishing out harm and care in equal measure.
Lately, I find myself intrigued by the allure of small evils. History is littered with great personalities of strong moral reserves and iron will, who can change the course of events for better or for worse. It is for them that biographies are written and wars are waged. But in stories, what I find more interesting are the other types, the characters caught up in their historical and social conditions, those accepting their fate and just trying to get by, or those simply choosing the most pragmatic route to minimize pain. The small tragedies and quaint joys. It may be the quintessential, middle class perspective and quality. At times earnest, eager to please, saddled by private worries; at their worst, conspirators to great evils. Capable of both tremendous love and intolerable selfishness. The private banker of Andreas Fontana’s Azor, the stubborn fathers in Farhadi’s A Separation, Arendt’s Eichmann, and Neuman’s Elena are some of those who come to mind.
Sartre considered absolving one’s self of agency as a sign of bad faith. But it appears to me that to be otherwise requires superhuman feats of resolve, that in truth, the world is filled with people who live in bad faith at various moments of their lives. And while philosophy has resolved to judge them, literature (and film) has opted instead to understand them. In recent years, in the context of the pandemic, I find myself increasingly moving towards the route paved by narratives, both as a way to understand others and myself.
Two Clocks 