bits and bants vol.13

what's your burnout sign+relics+behind the scenes in publishing

Happy Friday, Happy Eve of the feast of St. John the Baptist!

I’ve tried writing this newsletter three times and I’ve trashed all previous attempts because I don’t even make sense to myself. But that happens doesn’t it? Sometimes you sound crazy even to yourself.

Fields in the Month of June Charles-Francois Daubigny

So in lieu of something really good, I wanted to ask you your thoughts on burnout. I think burnout as we classically think of it is probably the end stage of burnout. I think we all experience burnout at regular intervals, but it may simply not get to the point where you need a full scale lifestyle glow up.

So what are your tell-tale signs of nearing burnout?

Mine include hating everything and being annoyed by everything. I’ve already got a pretty low tolerance of bullshit, inefficiency, and people not doing things my way, but I can tell when I’ve crossed the line of just people being people and me being burned out and in need of some kind of reset. The reset may be getting rid of something I’m doing, spending more time with friends (i.e. FUN), or getting some quality alone time which is very hard to have happen for me (still!).

I think burnout is one of those fun aspects of this postmodern, completely plastic society we live in and that most people don’t recognize it and just keep pumping that adrenaline into their nervous systems and don’t even notice a thing. We are addicted to the constant stress. We love the “busyness”. We don’t think we have human limits! We have lost most practical decision making and common sense when it comes to our life choices.

You’ve got tell-tale signs of stress, you may be ignoring them, distracting yourself with hours of mindless screen time, making sure you’re never alone, or turning to more addictive behaviours that make you feel better at the time, but I think we all know that we have more power to change those feelings of stress with real choices. It’s just completely anathema to make choices for limiting in a world of no limits.

---

bits:

• I’ve got a lot of em, so buckle right up!

• First up, this amazing story of the relic of the skull of St. Thomas More whose feast we celebrated this past week. Last year when we were in London there was such a tragic moment when we were in the chapel within the Tower of London and a small plaque read that the remains of maybe ten or twelve people including St. Thomas More and St. John Fisher were buried in a crypt behind a locked door. We even asked some Beefeaters if it was possible at any time for Catholics to go behind the door to pray at the grave to which they basically laughed us out of the place. There is no church in England dedicated to the veneration of the English Martyrs. I didn’t even know that St. Thomas' skull was in a different location until I read this piece!

• Now for my hobby horse link of the week. The problems we’re facing when it comes to division in society, political infantilism, and the basic inability for individuals to critically think come from bad education. The future is bleak.

• I loved this interesting piece about Cormac McCarthy, his editor, and one of the famed publishers of the industry. I love learning about the behind the scenes of the publishing industry and this one hit all the right notes. Also; Cormac McCarthy. What an unlikely career that guy had.

• This piece on Succession and its finale put to words much of what I thought of the series. While I thought the production, writing, acting, music, etc were all impeccable, the show itself never gave us much philosophical meat to chew. Billionaires were bad if they didn’t have the right politics. Media was bad if they didn’t have the right politics. Politicians were obviously fascists if they didn’t have the right politics. It’s so boring and patronizing and blatantly false. Except for people who don’t really want to think about the nuance of society, politics etc and view this basic paradigm as a dogma.

• And finally, in English country house news.

---

reading, watching, what have you:

• I am in a bad book place. I’ve read a string of not great books, listened to some pretty bad ones, and don’t have time to finish the good ones!

• I am reading the new book from Dr. Larry Chapp that just came out from Ignatius Press and he is putting into words so much of the general spiritual crisis not only of the individual but the Church that I wish I could think about it and write about it more.

• We’re catching up on Barry before my HBO subscription ends; it is a wild ride and Bill Hader is amazing.

---

That’s it for me, I gotta go clean my entire house because we’re having thirty people camp here for the weekend for a family reunion and I need things to be clean before they’re destroyed. Also, who’s tried a Spagatt and is it worth trying to track down Miller High Life’s in bottles in Canada….because it’s actually quite difficult.

hope your weekend is the appropriate temperature,

christy