This November was a particularly difficult one for me, and it left me feeling overwhelmed, unappreciated, and truly trapped in a metaphorical rut of tremendous depth. It was a situation that called for some serious rut-busting, which unexpectedly came in the form of Picard, the further adventures of Star Trek: The Next Generation and my child’s newfound love of Jo-Jo’s Bizarre Adventure. One was like visiting with old friends, while the other was like visiting new friends with giant onomatopoeia flying about, and a soundtrack by Yes. They both helped immensely, and thus far December 2021 has been a better experience, leading to today’s *ka-chunk ka-chunk* query…
The MS-QOTD (pronounced, as always, “misquoted”) is one of those people that loves to watch shows I’ve seen a million times, but for some reason they were all not working or not available, asking: What media do you find most successful for rut-busting?
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It really depends on what kind of rut I’m in. If it’s a rut of an overactive brain, then something like watching TV or reading comics that allow my brain to relax into something that doesn’t tax my attention very much is the right prescription.
But then sometimes the rut is that I’ve been engaging in too much mind-relaxant media, so then what I need it to dive into something more creative like puzzles, games, writing, or drawing.
I suppose a happy medium is had when I stream British game shows, because if I want to puzzle-solve then there’s the opportunity, but if I don’t then I can just relax into the vicariousness of listening to Monty Python and Doctor Who adjacent accents doing the puzzle solving for me.
Not to cross the wires too much, but there’s a non-MSP comic podcast/ youtube channel called Cartoonist Kayfabe that concentrates more on the inside baseball, nuts’n’bolts side of comic production (down to the types of pencils, pens, brushes, paper, duotone peel’n’stick decals for shading, etc) that generally gets me in the mood to draw, or god forbid actually try to get better at anatomy, poses, action, etc.
Really good stuff. Not MSP good, but a different kinda good.
To me its comedic slice of life anime or manga. The kind where bunch of school kids go camping, do pottery, cook or whatever. Nothing too stressful happens, everything is nice and even the most mundane things are presented in detail and made to look super interesting.