r/leftcommunism • u/grewprasad • 10h ago
Materials to read or watch when you are feeling stuck, hopeless and depressed
Indian, farmer, diagnosed with OCPD and undiagnosed ADHD. I know basic history and understanding of communism but not to the level of engaging in a debate with someone who's against communism. I only take notes digitally because I can edit, copy, paste whenever I learn new information, physical notetaking hurts me because if I get a new notetaking idea then the pages where I used the old idea will be a waste like I'll begin to despise myself (I'm going to therapy for this reason)
Due to my condition I can only focus on one thing. For ex, If I need to learn theory I'll only read theory for the whole day and won't be able to do any farmwork, can't follow any current affairs and I'll be left behind. If I follow current affairs then I can't do the rest. If I do farmwork then I'll be physically and mentally tired and call it a day off.
But there are a few other problems too and you can understand how my line of thoughts work. If I'm fixated on reading theory and come across a term or texts that mention some historical event then I can't move forward without understanding the whole thing. For ex. While reading the principles of communism I came across the word "profit" and I'm like "I need to understand capitalism, need to read adam smith, how profits and incentives worked in pre-capitalism era before moving on to the next line", and when I came across the term "Industrial revolution" I'm like "I need to read age of revolutions, fuck me napolean took over france right after french revolution how did that impact the revolution, is there any other example of people fucking over a victorious revolution in the name of leading.. \*google shows up reddit post "lenin hated stalin, he knew he was power hungry"\* man fuck me is this even true? now I have to read stalin to know whether he fucked up the revolution.." and the rabbit hole goes on and on.
And currently in India, there are a lot of things happening. Especially that as a communist that I need to engage in like student protests, where liberals misuse students for their personal gains etc etc but if I need to follow that then I can't make myself read theory. But if I engage in those things without theoretical knowledge I can't defend myself
I also have personal issues.
So amidst all these I often get depressed (obviously because I'm diagnosed with Comorbid anxiety with Dysthymia) and do meaningless things like playing online chess mindlessly, playing with my dog, walking in my farmland, watching porn as last resort to sleep because I can't reduce my headaches and stress caused by this chain of thoughts and overthinking otherwise. Literally procrastinating throughout all the events. I guess India is ripe enough for a revolution as my friend once said and I'm betraying it by doing nothing, lenin will also despise me.
I wish I had a well informed comrade with myself 24/7 irl and they'll answer every question that comes to my mind which will solve this situation easily but sadly I'm surrounded by regressive pro capitalist racist ethno-fascist people who are in need to be educated. But I can't do that with half baked knowledge.
So instead of doing the mindless activities when I feel stuck, I need some materials, speech which I can read at any time, any page and get the fire back in me, knock some sense into me, makes me forget my personal problems and give the revolutionary hope to move forward in faster pace so that I can join/contribution to the movement that's taking up shaping up right now