Status Updates From The Diaries of Franz Kafka ...

About 100 pages in.
I’m surprised to be enjoying Kafka’s diary more than I expected. He’s writing more, still tired and restless, but also moving through the world, watching plays, wandering at night, recording strange and sometimes unintentionally funny moments. What I like most is the contrast between his chaotic inner life and how clearly he can write for work. These pages feel less heavy and more alive.

50 pages in.
Reading Kafka’s diary feels less like reading and more like standing close to someone else’s pain. His loneliness is easy to feel, and so is how much he ties his worth to writing. When the words don’t come, he turns against himself. Some entries feel like a closed loop: I can’t write. I am worthless. I must write. I can’t write. He punishes himself in advance so reality doesn’t have to.

Book ten is heavy. Why does reading about how someone else really feels about themselves hurt so much?

"At last I have the word ‘stigmatize’ and the sentence that goes with it, but still hold everything in my mouth with a feeling of disgust and shame as if it were raw meat, cut out of my own flesh (so much effort has it cost me)"

14th (August 1913) “ The opposite has occurred. Three letters arrived. The last one I couldn’t resist. I love her, as far as I am capable of it but this love lies buried to the point of suffocation under fear and self reproaches.)
A perfect example of needing to ignore your fears of not being good enough and believe that you can be happy.

"19 june, 1910
slept, woke up, slept, woke up, miserable life"