Well, this is wild.

My little ennui documentation took a small break once I got back in school, huh?

It did help a lot, exploring ideas I cared about on the daily, having my own thoughts seen and known by professors I grew to respect and admire.

It was also a treadmill of seeking outside validation in the form of grades and comments in the margins of my papers. I wanted to be liked. Wanted to say the right things. Wanted to seem clever and on point, politically.

Stakes were high.

On good days, I could set that aside and just tap in - read, write, discuss, genuinely think about things and let personal impressions fall where they may.

I also spent enough time bracing myself for my classmates' ideas and reflections, which were painful at times. I got jaded, watching seemingly bright people go dim when it came to understanding their role in continuing various forms of inequality.

It was cute, then, when I recognized the same dynamic in myself. So much easier to understand ourselves as David, rather than Goliath. But most of us are both.

Now I'm figuring out what to do with this mixture of power and powerlessness, privilege and disadvantage. I've learned too much to keep doing what I've always done. I can't be one of those people with all the right talking points against oppression but no material actions to match.

Then there are the physical and emotional limitations to consider; how much can I do without burning out? What is my real capacity?

I don't expect any permanent answer, but I'm working on a ballpark estimate to work around.

There's a kind of ennui in that, too.

Now's as good a time as any to find this blog again.