Languishing on Screen

A couple of months ago an article came out in the New York Times that made its round all over my social media. It was entitled, ‘There’s a Name for the Blah You’re Feeling: It’s Called Languishing’. As many of you might be feeling, and as the rate of published articles on AvidBards might demonstrate, the urge and motivation to produce has been in short stock in recent months, and this article suggests a reason as to why that is. Described as the ‘the neglected middle child of mental health’, languishing is ‘a sense of stagnation and emptiness. It feels as if you’re muddling through your days, looking at your life through a foggy windshield’.

I could not have put it better myself. But to take it further, I have found myself feeling the absence of a sense of excitement or energy from the films and shows that I am watching as well. Where performed storytelling brought me so much joy in the past, I face much of it with a sense of lack and stagnation. It’s just not hitting the spot lately, not engaging me to the point that I forget about the world and this could very well be the reason. After spending the majority of this past year on our sofas, the act of sinking into the couch cushions and transport myself away from now empty streets outside my window was just not appealing. And I couldn’t help but wonder if part of the appeal of watching a 2-hour movie, or a 45 mins episode (though let’s be real, we’re likely watching 2 or 3 episodes in a row) is appealing only because it’s a respite from the busy-ness of the world that does not exist at the moment. 

On the other hand, it could also be how low-key the arrival of a movie or show is lately. Without cinemas and box office ratings to entice you into an immersive (immensely) large screen cinema experience, what sets the viewer up? The lack of immersion in our everyday lives has resulted in an inability to fully commit to just about anything (at least in my case) without simultaneously thinking or looking for the next thing to occupy my time.

Flow experience: “Situations in which attention can be freely invested to achieve a person’s goals, because there is no disorder to straighten out, no threat for the self to defend against.”

Excerpt From: Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. “Flow”. 

A concept initially taken from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the co-founder of positive psychology, Csikszentmihalyi argues that “When a person is able to organize his or her consciousness so as to experience flow as often as possible, the quality of life is inevitably going to improve”. I got turned onto this concept from Cal Newports immensely popular book Deep Work, where he similar argues that we live in a world that is rife with distraction but when able to harness flow, or in his terms deep work, you are at an advantage. 

So how does this relate to languishing? The cinematic industry depends on being able to occupy the attention of their viewers in order to turn a profit and keep viewers coming back (particularly important for movie series and television shows). The pandemic has driven me and many others to constantly fill our times that would have otherwise been occupied by work, commutes, social time and all the rest. With coming back to the ‘world’ as things open up once again, I realise more and more that I have lost the ability to find my flow. 

Indeed, Bo Burham’s latest Netflix special, Indoor, hints at the very same feeling: 

Is the issue that there is too much choice? We all know the feeling of being at the grocery and being spoiled for a choice that you can’t make a decision. I very quickly realised that the things I want to watch are things that are already familiar, like the sequel of A Quiet Place or the never-ending addition to the Fast and Furious franchise. In a world where I don’t know what to expect of tomorrow anymore, I want to watch things that I know enough of what to expect that I’m not left in suspense. 

And that’s the real problem now, isn’t it? It’s not only that we are in a state of languishing, the simultaneously lack and excess of stimulation has left me avoiding anticipation and suspense of any manner. My comfort is not a respite from the normal world, but rather returning to the normal world, the familiarity of a world that is what we expect and want it to be, which is why we (or at least I) keep returning to movies and shows we know and already love. 

So if languishing is where I am, how do we get back to a sense of excitement because isn’t that the whole point? 

My advice: indulge in it. Create a cinema experience in your own home watching those movies you’ve loved for years but rarely watch back. Rewatch your favourite show from beginning to end and make a routine out of it, with one episode every night. Go back and binge read those books that got you into reading in the first place even if they’re meant for kids or young adults.

If familiar is what you’re looking for, go find it, and let that excitement of storytelling consume you in a way that makes you excited by media again.