On their knees, the war pigs crawling.

I am fascinated with all things social, but history has never been my strong suit. I enjoy learning about the past, but I have no memory for names & dates, and no patience for dry "academic" writing. I do my best to get through the thick, sometimes nearly meaningless words to see the inherently interesting subject, but most of the time it seems like an excuse to have SAT words finally used.

For example, I'm reading a text about Chinese art from 1620 on (incidentally called The Arts of China from 1620) for a Chinese Civilization course. The work is actually quite amazing, and the stories behind them are superb. My favorite by far is of Yun Xiang, a relatively minor artist from the 1500's who is best known not for his paintings or poetry, but because he turned down a position as an official (a highly prestigeous place in society, "elite" status). His reason was simply that he "preferred freedom to wander in the countryside."

That's fucking awesome. In an age when rejection from such a position likely leads to starvation and ostricization, he was courageous enough to follow his own will and do what mattered to him. Even if it resulted in mostly paintings of mountains (landscapes were all the rage in ancient China), he did what he wanted rather than what society demanded of him.

Problem: the book is so dry that I can hardly get through it, even though stories like this are amazing. I've been away from academic writing for so long that I can't even make it through a relatively short piece with lots of pictures.

This had better be the best/last academic paper I ever write, once I make my way through the rest of the book.

Black Sabbath will help me push through the dull.