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During all of the traumatizing, troubling, stressful days of my life I have always watched an episode of the Three Stooges or read a book about them. It never fails to get me laughing. Try it...
The podcast is called Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History. He only does a few podcasts a year and the are often 3-4 hours long (so I listen to them in pieces). The WW1 series he did was called Blueprint for Armageddon. It’s in 6 parts and starts in October 2013.
Excellent, thank you. I hope you've seen 1917, a truly outstanding film. I'd also recommend They Shall Not Grow Old, a 1 hr. 40 min. documentary by filmmaker Peter Jackson (of the Lord of the Rings) who has restored archival footage from WWI and colorized all of it.
During all of the traumatizing, troubling, stressful days of my life I have always watched an episode of the Three Stooges or read a book about them. It never fails to get me laughing. Try it...
No thanks, I have too many functional brain cells.
Dance with the Devil, the Devil doesn't change. You change.
Just walk off, if you've had your limits of horror.
Blondebaerde just reminded me of one of my favorite truisms:
"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you."
Friedrich Nietzsche
Some of my favorite films are about people who set out with good intentions only to be caught in the web of evil deeds. It's true that trauma can change us in ways we don't like and we all come to a limit of what's good for us. Even psychopaths self-destruct with too rich a diet.
Since you're interested in history, perhaps even the kind which changes us for the worse, why not read a little about what happened to culture after the war was over? Englishman Evelyn Waugh has a great deal to say about the transformation of English culture as a result of WWI. And he does it with a sharp eye and witty, withering tongue. He is writing of personal tragedy but his observations are hilarious in that dry English manner. He might provide a welcome break.
Excellent, thank you. I hope you've seen 1917, a truly outstanding film. I'd also recommend They Shall Not Grow Old, a 1 hr. 40 min. documentary by filmmaker Peter Jackson (of the Lord of the Rings) who has restored archival footage from WWI and colorized all of it.
I could watch all of that except when the horses were getting shot and shelled.
OP, I went through something similar years and years ago when I read Randy Shilts's book And the Band Played On (about the early years of the AIDS epidemic). I tend to read just before going to sleep, but this book literally gave me nightmares, so I had to put it aside and watch something silly on TV or read a "light" book for a while -- i.e., Shilts's words simply could not be the last things I read/heard before sleeping.
I've also taught a course on the Holocaust and that was difficult and traumatic for both the students and me, but we knew it would be. We would often watch films or video clips (e.g., survivor stories) in class, and I would leave the lights off for several minutes afterward so we could all decompress (or wipe away tears) before talking about what we'd just seen.
I can read about war but not just before sleeping ... some things are just too painful to think about at that time.
During all of the traumatizing, troubling, stressful days of my life I have always watched an episode of the Three Stooges or read a book about them. It never fails to get me laughing. Try it...
Are you a guy? I've only ever known men to laugh at their antics.
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