With the start of Brain Fart Life, I had the idea to create monthly summaries. As most of the events happening on the blog will be thematic, I found it good to tell you how I felt working on these themes. What I read, what I watched or still, what I listened to in the past few weeks.
May in itself was a bit of internal debate. It could either be the month of changes or the month of starting a new. I decided to go with the latter. Paradoxically, changes have been quite constant in my life. In recent months and for the past two years, I have changed, evolved, and have grown a lot. It would be unfair to put it all under one month. But “starting anew” has a nice ring to it. It gives me this feeling of being reborn, of trying something that I’ve never tried before. And even though I have blogged in the past it was never personal. This time, with this project, I want to give my whole self.
And it was a strong start for Brain Fart Life. Apart from opening the page for all of you to read I also shared a bit more context on the name I have chosen for it [link]. I also put my archival article about working with ADHD and Autism in an office space that was published on medium.com in English and noizz.pl in Polish (and in a couple of other languages). Subsequently, I was invited as a guest of the wonderful Nicole on her @shrtcttng project taking part in a 1 hour long Instagram live video. We talked about Mental Health, the past, and the future.
I will be forever grateful for all, who made this new start happen. Yes, you know I am writing about you. Yes, you.
So let me tell you what made me think about all of this.
Book To Read: The Choice by Dr. Edith Eva Eger
You could easily put this book on the shelf with other memoirs of Auschwitz and Holocaust survivors, but there is something quite different in The Choice. Dr. Eger not only tells her story of pain, death, and trauma but also a story full of hope, kindness, and healing. As she became a trauma psychologist after the war, before she fully healed herself, she also helped a lot of people deal with their past and traumas: soldiers, parents, children. In this book, you will find a lot of stories of individuals the author met on the road to her new life. As people, we often don’t have an impact on what happens to us, but we have a choice of what to do with it.
You can’t change what happened, you can’t change what you did or what was done to you. But you can choose how you live now. My precious, you can choose to be free.
Dr. Edith Eva Eger
Album To Listen: Blood Bank 2020 by Bon Iver
The EP titled Blood Bank was originally published in 2009 and quickly became a very known and important piece for indie folk music. Somewhere between then and now you may hear a fragment of Woods, which tells a compelling story of self-isolation and finding yourself; i.e. on Kanye West track Lost in the World (you can learn about cross inspiration between Kanye and Justin here). You may feel a bit weird while listening to Blood Bank which might be a self-reflection of the modern world. A world where we feel much more empowered to share our emotions online, than in real life (ironically, this is what I do as well at the moment). For the 10 year anniversary of the EP, Bon Iver decided to re-release the record, with an updated sound – all recorded during live performances.
Game To Play: Minecraft by Mojang Studios
Talking about starting anew, there is no other choice possible in gaming than Minecraft. After a couple of years, I have come back to this virtual world of losing yourself in mines, building your safe haven, exploring the endless unknown, just to start over again. Every time you lose yourself in the pursuit of diamonds just above a block of lava. A game, that is now 11 years old, not only became an educational phenomenon but also helped me personally throughout a lot of hard times. Very often, when stuck and in need of getting my head out of tight spaces, I launched into this world of possibilities to unwind, and find new ways. And even now, with the upcoming new update to the game – Nether Update, Mojang Studios are funding a new way to make this game franchise look and feel fresh. Just this week, a separate adventure, Minecraft Dungeons, launched and is already giving fans something new.
Show To Watch: The Midnight Gospel
This is definitely one of the hardest pieces of pop culture to describe. This one is my fourth approach to it. This Adult Animation, from the creator of Adventure Time – Pendleton Ward, and comedian Duncan Trussel is a story of Clancy, a multiverse space caster. In each of eight episodes, Clancy is traveling through different worlds and planets on a brink of apocalypse to interview its inhabitants about their thoughts on life, meditation, and the impending doom of their worlds. On top of that, all of the characters in the show, are really guests of Duncan Trussel Family Hour podcast and most of the dialogue in the show are actually snippets from the same show.
Movie to Watch: Marriage Story
I always find pleasure in such personal stories like this one. Grown a bit tired of watching “we need to save the world” in most of the cinema experiences in the last decade or so. Noah Baumbach has this ease with creating stories that speak to me on an emotional level with good dialogue and great casting. Each character here is important, each dialogue needed and every scene is leaving a mark on the viewer. And don’t be fooled by the title. It’s not just a marriage story. It’s a story about love, impulses, respect, loss, grievance, and, yes, starting a new.
With June just around the corner, I have a plan to focus on the duality of Mental Health and the constant feeling that it is a blessing and a curse at the same time. So welcome to June, the month of duality.