Gibbon in 2017

In attempting to read The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, I may have bitten off more than I can chew. The book is well written, and therein lies the problem. It’s too well written.
I read of Julian the Apostate, or I read of Theodosius, father of the emperor, or so many others, and I think to myself, “But for that death, maybe we could have avoided it.” I feel the need to jump into the screen of my Kindle and to scream, through thousands of years, at these men that maybe, just maybe things could be different. It’s a frustrating thing to read, and it’s taking a lot out of me emotionally. Add to this the fact that after a month of reading, I’m only one third of the way through the damned thing, I don’t think that I can submit myself to much more of this. I’m going to have to revisit it later. Though, like with other books like this, I fear that I’ll struggle to pick up where I left off.
I don’t know why it is that I’m able to sympathize, and empathize, with the vague approximations of characters given to me in history more easily than fiction. I seem to be suffering an inverse Augustine, where reality is more real to me than fiction, and I struggle to accept such a thing. It’s amazing how stressed I become reading this book, how desperate I am to speak to these people. It’s a startling lack of self control. I don’t know exactly what it implies.
I still haven’t been able to read much fiction. It’s still a laborious ordeal, no matter how much I think that I want to do it. I think that I need to stay off of the computer for a few weeks. But we’ll see if I can manage to make that happen.
I’m feeling much better lately. The temperature has finally cooled. The second typhoon of the season canceled everything. Again. But it’s ushered in reasonable weather. The weather changes today have bothered me less than the general suffering of the oppressive heat and humidity of the barometericly stable days. It’s frustrating, and odd, to see how much weather impacts me and how I, in all of my infinite complexity, am a helpless pawn in the hands of this unfortunate southern climate.
I feel as though I’ve disconnected from everybody over the last month and a half. I am hoping to remedy that. For what it’s worth, I have also disconnected from myself.