What do you do when you see yourself in an author?

A Meditation on When You See Your Bad Times Reflected in The Writers You Admire

I have been in what can be considered a rut. It is not the traditional writer’s block—a matter that can often be remedied with further research. Rather, it is the subject matter which I am researching and the futility that I perceive in pursuit of that study that has left me with a sense of purposelessness that has been difficult to shake.