Another thing: The Lost Method
Solving the mystery of laziness.
Welcome to Letters From the Knot, a free newsletter/blog, primarily built as an outlet for a fiction writing project I’m working on. When I’m not publishing fiction, though, I’ll be sending something a bit more freeform and personal. This is one of those.
I used to be like you - lazy, unmotivated, despondent - but then I started rewatching the 2004 ensemble island mystery show, Lost, and it’s turned my life around. There was a time when dragging myself to the gym or completing basic household chores felt like an extreme effort. Now, every chore is also an opportunity to force a little nugget of Lost into my life.
This was a lifestyle initially born of desperation. My partner flatly refused to rejoin me on my Lost rewatch journey, meaning our shared TV time is devoted entirely to Big Brother, Real Housewives, and horror films that nobody has ever heard of that scored 68% on Rotten Tomatoes. It means I’ve had to adopt a guerrilla lifestyle if I want to watch Lost. Once upon a time that would have meant staying up late or getting up early, but not anymore.
These days, if I’m doing the washing up, I can prop up my phone on the windowsill and squeeze in 15 minutes of Lost (see pic). I’m now, for the first time in my life, incentivised to go the gym - 5 minutes of Lost on the rowing machine, 20 minutes of Lost-free time on the weights machines, and then a further 25 minutes of Lost on the treadmill. I recently cleaned the whole flat while watching an episode and a half of Lost and it was bliss. By only watching Lost at times that I would usually have been bored, unhappy, or tired, I’ve managed to drastically reduce the overall amount of time I spend feeling bored, unhappy and tired.
To translate this into modern internet slang, I’ve created a “life hack”.
I’ve not got very far in working on this theory, but I think Lost might be the perfect show for this kind of “hack”. The visuals are always pretty similar (jungle, hatch, generic American suburban flashback), the characters aren’t very dynamic, and the storytelling is extremely broad brush. The effect is that you can get the full amount of enjoyment from the show even if you’re only looking at the screen about 30% of the time. Maybe even more enjoyment because you don’t have to look at the janky CGI polar bears or confront the fact that the show's biggest scariest monster is just (presumably for budgetary reasons) a noisy cloud.
Sure there are narrative inconsistencies and weird moments of American exceptionalism and occasionally problematic stereotypes but, ultimately, isn’t that what the 00s were all about?
I suppose I should also acknowledge the fact that, now two months into my anti-depressants journey, there may be other reasons I feel more motivated and less despondent but we simply won’t know until I’ve finished watching Lost again.
In the meantime, please tell me about other shows that would work for this. I fear six seasons of Lost won’t be quite enough for me to get ripped so I need something to move on to. As well as the above criteria, it’s also important that this show does NOT contain nudity because I like my gym and I can’t afford to be banned/have my head kicked in by strong people.
Cultural indigestion
Ingoings.
Watching - I watched The Substance a couple of weeks ago and initially I came away thinking it was a bit derivative (Picture of Dorian Grey x Gremlins). It’s one of those films that works on you after the fact though and, only after talking about it a bit did I realise the sledgehammer delivery of its core message was precisely the point. The body horror was extremely effective, all of the acting was great, and the finale was worth waiting for. I do think it was too long but, ultimately, given it’s a film about the inescapable standards applied to female bodies, who the fuck cares what I have to say about it.
Reading - As someone who plays videogames, but finds videogame culture nauseating and repulsive, it’s always nice to come across writing about videogames that’s nuanced and interesting without trying to be overly academic. I’ve recently been reading ON Games, a sort of hybrid book/magazine/journal featuring some of the best writers (for my money) in the videogame sphere. It’s been a pleasure to read and it’s a beautiful object too, which is nice!
Playing - Speaking of games, I’ve had a pretty long dry streak in terms of finding something I actually want to play. My tastes seem to be getting more niche the older I get and the more of a prick I become, so it’s nice to find something that really sucks me in. I’ve been playing a lot of Balatro this week, a deck-building game that comes close to the highs of Slay the Spire - it’s a kind of riff on poker, but don’t let that put you off. It’s got all the dopamine spiralling multiplier action you want from a game like this and it promises a lot more depth beyond what I’ve seen.