Spicy, Not Spicy, or Both

'The overall goal of this multi-dimensional approach [to the study of 'religion and film'] is to offer a richer account of the films concerned, which develops an appreciation of their nature and functions as film 'texts' operating within -- and constructing -- particular contexts.' (my emphases)

Melanie J. Wright
Religion and Film: An Introduction
(London: I.B. Tarius, 2007) p. 30.

Okay.
You have been muddling in your own work for years.
You imagine that you are churning out something groundbreaking that is destined to shake up the world. (Well, this is an exaggeration, should only say 'destined to slightly disturb the tiny private universe of a handful of people in the world.)
You believe you are staking out a methodological approach which, although not completely constructed from scratch, is nevertheless (according to the best of your knowledge) essentially an innovation by pulling together things that have not been employed in your particular discipline.

Now somebody has published a book ahead of you, advocating an approach that sounds so xxxxingly close to what you are trying to do. (Yes, I know, I know, you can always play defense and say that it is not exactly the same thing. But you know clearly what it is all about.)

The bad side: Your methodological approach is not innovative anymore.
The good side: You are not alone in the universe. This indicates that what you are thinking about is not as weird as some -- especially those Biblical studies or systematics or historical theology people around -- may sometimes imagine.

As the Hong Kong idiom has it, it is both spicy and not spicy at the same time, that is, 有辣有唔辣, in the same dish!
Oh, it suddenly comes to dawn on me that this is possibly the most vivid popular illustration of Marxist dialectics -- two apparently opposing phenomena are not mutually exclusive.

相關前文：(一) 聖女帶來的快感；(二) Attempting Genuine Interdisciplinarity