I was flat for a few days last week, flat in a human sense.
Couldn't explain it.
Was working hard, but I like working hard. Was performing my core duties and habits well, good enough... but that joyful spark, that animating force, that bright animation to greater heights?
It was gone.
Where had it gone?
It was upsetting.
I tried a variety of things: rest more, rest less, etc. Nothing worked.
Then I realized what was going on, and — oh, how obvious.
I'd finished Haruki Murakami's brilliant non-fiction "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running."
I hadn't put enough of a value on it. When I was tired from work and wanted a break, I read some Murakami. It was reinvigorating.
Browsing randomly and on a history kick lately, I drifted into reading on the last days of the Third Reich and the American and British efforts to not have Nazi technology fall into Soviet hands.
This is mostly gruesome and terrible reading. Insightful, yes. And you can read of the heroism of the various Allied forces, and admire their various achievements and brilliance.
But it's all gruesome, the dark hazy cloud of all the atrocities hanging over the whole thing.
I hadn't realized that until I shifted to starting reading a biography of Mustafa Kemal, who went on to be Ataturk and founded modern Turkey.
Just like in reading Murakami, this is a man worthy of such great admiration, and it's invigorating to read of his path.
I hadn't realized how much books were indirectly affecting all my performance.
I'll pay more attention to that going forwards.
There are plenty of unpleasant issues and topics that are very worthy of study, but I'm going to pick times more carefully for diving into those topics.
Reading affects one's mood greatly. How obvious! Well, it's easy to overlook things. The levers to pull to affect one's mind are subtle and poorly marked.