Obsessions & Hobby sessions
Another day, another obsession. This time, it’s cult American TV show Community, which we’ve binged in about a week (only a decade late!!! I think it’s gonna be big!!!). Amongst other things, it’s a show that gave us the infamous gif of Donald Glover walking into a room on fire, and Jeff Winger, a character on whom my crush is so intense that I genuinely, briefly considered setting up a twitter account that chronicled whether I fancied him after each episode (I would guess it would end up at a solid 75% “yes” overall, shooting up to a high 95% in Series 5 & 6.)
Knowing that they’d watched it and enjoyed it, I was telling some friends about my new found love last week, when I said something along the lines of “I literally cannot deal with how much I adore it, you know?”
“People always say that,” my friend, ever the sanguine philosopher, replied, “but what do they mean? You can, very literally, deal with it.”
The thing is, though - I’m not so sure I can. To paint you a picture, my friend has his Shit Together. He does the type of big baller job that I don’t understand, something to do with trading, and he is cool, calm and collected. I very much believe that he can literally deal with things, whether he loves them or hates them.
I, on the other hand, often do feel completely overwhelmed by it. When I unearth something new that I love, it takes hold very, very quickly. (I count my lucky stars every day that MSN statuses are no longer a thing, because you’d be able to track my new whims and wants probably hourly. This week alone, it would have been “The biggest truths aren't original. The truth is ketchup. It's Jim Belushi ~ Jeff Winger (um) (k) (f)”, then “Yourr Apathyy’s Likee A Woundd Inn Saltt (W) ^o)”, and rounding off with a nice, pleasant “;;Nish Kumar, marry me pleaseeee’?”).
When I say “I can’t deal”, I don’t mean I’m embarrassed. In certain contexts, the phrase can signify “I can’t deal with the awkwardness or mortification of this” (Use it in a sentence, you ask? Sure. I can’t deal with that Matt Hancock photo that’s everywhere on my twitter feed - though, tbf, that brings up more feelings than embarrassment: mainly, rage. Rage rage rage.) But that’s not the case here; I’m not embarrassed in the slightest about my love for Community, or many of the other things I fall head-over-heels for. In other contexts, the phrase belies something more existential - that I literally cannot deal with life today. Though I certainly have my moments, that’s not what I mean here either.
So what do I mean when I say, with no hint of sarcasm or hyperbole and only the tiniest millennial twinge of literal-means-figurative-now, that I can’t deal? What I mean is that the speed at which this new thing has integrated and become a central part of my life has become something akin to warp. That I have gone from watching no TV to doing nothing but watching TV after the work day is over - and that demarcation is only because my partner works a ‘proper’ job which renders him unable to watch before at least 6.30pm. That I’ve gotten so invested in the characters that I’ve googled selective synopses because I simply can’t wait to watch it unfold in real (10 years late) time, which then leaves me stuck with the knowledge but unable to share it because my partner doesn’t want the spoilers (selfish!).
And whilst this may sound OTT, it’s a totally normal course of action for me when I love something. It’s a pretty simple process, with only 2 stages: initial discovery, and then total immersion. This is, of course, about as disorientating as it sounds; a week and a half ago I didn't even know what Community was, but now it’s a world I feel like I’ve always been a part of.
It probably won’t surprise you to hear that this has become a running theme with me and hobbies. I’ve gone from reading about 2 books a year to frequently reading 2 books in a weekend, devouring the characters and plotlines with feverish intensity. Since taking up reading again I now spend a lot of my time on Goodreads, merrily gathering new titles to add to my TBR list. (When I connected with a school friend’s bookstagram earlier this year, she mentioned that Goodreads was her most checked social media account. At the time, I laughed - I now know she was being 100% serious, because it’s mine too.)
But rather than feel excitement at the number of brilliantly creative authors having released incredible books that I want to read, I just feel nausea at the amount of books that exist in the world that I haven’t read yet. Worse, I actively detest the fact that I know I could spend every second of the rest of my life reading only books I wanted to read, and I’d still never get through them all. Intellectually, I know this is scintillating; emotionally, it feels suffocating.
And I think that’s what I mean when I say I can’t deal - I can’t deal with the fact that I’ve lived 25 and a bit years without this in my life. There was BC, Before Community, and now I’m in AD, and I can’t help but wonder how I spent the BC years with any sense of purpose or meaning.
Hobbies also stir within me a deep-seated need to somehow make up for lost time, though I’ve no real idea what this would look like. Jumping in the nearest Delorean, travelling back to 2009 and forcing 14 year old me to watch Community? In the words of Benoit Blanc, it makes no damn sense - but it compels me. I just know that I really feel I’m NOT DOING ENOUGH TOWARDS IT.
So when I can’t deal with my love for something, what I actually mean is I can’t deal with the fact that at some point I never knew it existed, much less had it in my life. (Have I overthought everything to an existential degree during this pandemic? Obviously yes!) I literally cannot deal with how much I love my passions, but also - I wouldn’t have it any other way. As the famous quote says: better to have loved and lost out on the time when you didn’t know it existed, than to have never loved at all...