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Hey, saw your response to an ask about reading. Just wanted to share this, maybe you'll like it. I'm a PhD scholar (English lit) and when I started my master's degree 8.5 years ago, one of the professors pointed towards a tree outside and asked what we saw. When I responded that I saw the window frame, she said that analytical approaches add frames and depth to what we read, and that makes the experience more pleasurable. I hadn't approached theory like that during my bachelor's, and something about her words made me enjoy reading even more from that point on. There are so many forms of analysis that it's like having so many perspectives alongwith what you read. The best part is that your world becomes richer due to it. It's like viewing something you never knew existed within that literary world. Somewhat like 'thick description' in Cultural Studies. When we look at a water bottle we don't just look at a water bottle, we think of everything that it could possibly denote, like the vogue of straws in bottles, or the forces of production behind it, or how a certain colour became so popular in the past year. Thinking of things like that made me engage with the world in such a different way, like thinking of all the behind-the-scenes things that go into making a micro trend popular, or making a restaurant that serves bad food popular. I think it has made me appreciate reading even more. Reading books, and reading the world.

end of january affirmations