In which I use my LJ as a diary and not as an "omg look at this cool thing!" collector

[elaby]

Last night when caitirin and I were talking about looking for a house and the various stresses we've been under the past couple of weeks, and I said that I thought life was always going to be disappointing. It sounds way more cynical and hopeless than I meant it; I meant more that adult life is never going to meet my childhood and teenage expectations and I should therefore adjust those expectations. And caitirin said to me that she wants me to want something, like the way she wants a new spinning wheel or pretty yarn. And it's true, I don't want things the same way some people do. I wish I did. It's more that I yearn for the idea of something - being a writer or an animator or a Vocaloid song producer - but I absolutely don't have the drive it takes to accomplish any of these things. And I wonder if I might truly value the things I'd have to sacrifice (i.e. my non-work hours) more than the possible result of that yearning.

I'm a published author, even if it's only one short story that's been published. I ask myself, is one published story enough? And it honestly might be. I'm not certain that I want or need other people to read my full-length stories. Maybe just finishing one and self-publishing a hard copy and having it on my shelf would be good.

I think people in our culture (or maybe humanity in general) have an ingrained desire to change the world, to make lives better, especially those of people they don't know (why having an impact on strangers is deemed more significant than on friends and family I'm not sure). What is "significant" is really subjective, and I'm torn a lot of the time between thinking I should be doing "significant" things, whatever that means, and doing what I want, which is most often playing video games or watching anime or anything else that I find enjoyable but doesn't leave an impact on other people.

I love that I have a story published, and I feel fulfilled when people enjoy my writing and my art. But I don't actually have a lot of interest in looking up reviews of A Study in Lavender to see what people think of it. I don't know why. I really think I'd need more drive than I have if I wanted to get any stories with characters of my own published. This idea doesn't send me into despair; I might be entirely okay with it.

The only thing I can think of that I'm not ever apathetic about, as I am about drawing and writing sometimes, is Japanese. Translating is the only activity that I'll get annoyed if I have to interrupt for basic human needs like eating. And at the same time that it brings out my little-used motivation, I also find it ridiculously freaking frustrating.

Sometimes I feel like all the motivation and energy I have is used up in going to work and seeing friends. And work is, you know, I have to go to work, and I like doing things with friends, but it still takes so much energy. I have the kind of constitution (as the Victorians would say) that finds being with other people draining even if I'm having an awesome time. This is something I'm ashamed of, because it sounds like I'm saying I don't like being with my friends or that I'd rather be doing something else, which isn't true. It just takes energy, and it doesn't "unwind" me, as it were. I can't change this, and I think it's unhealthy for me to try (because I've tried in the past). I just have to know my limits.

Figuring out what's good for me (and then doing it) has been a large part of my anti-anxiety campaign, and I wonder if it would be better for my mental well-being to push for lofty goals or to accept that lofty goals may not be for me. I haven't come to a conclusion, but writing this out this morning did make me feel better.

Comments

[caitirin.livejournal.com]

*LOVES* *like... a whole freakin' lot*

[elaby.livejournal.com]

n_n You're the best thing in the world.

[storyfan.livejournal.com]

This is a very thoughtful post, and I'd like to think about it a little bit before I respond. I'd like my comment to be equally thoughtful!

[elaby.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks :) I'm interested in hearing your thoughts!

[raechel]

"... I said that I thought life was always going to be disappointing. It sounds way more cynical and hopeless than I meant it; I meant more that adult life is never going to meet my childhood and teenage expectations and I should therefore adjust those expectations..."

I've been going through something VERY similar most of this year. I've been told it's the classic quarter-life crisis and I'm just ambitious enough to knock it out early. It doesn't sound horrible or even cynical to me, just... is?

I'm with you, though. I feel like everything I want that I don't currently have would take more than I have in me to give. And I obviously love the things I do have but I don't want like others do. I can't fill that feeling with little things like most can.

I think the desire to please and impact the lives of strangers is almost selfish. Not in a "you're selfish" kind of way, but in that it takes more of ourselves to care about someone we have no reason to care about. It isn't difficult to want to do something fantastic for someone we love but to do that same act for a stranger and wow, you must be an incredibly giving person. At least, that's how our society views it.

People don't drain me as much as they used to like having a child does. I love her, GOODNESS KNOWS I love her. But OH MY GOD she drains me every single day. I find myself saying to her at least once that she needs to go to another room or stop talking for a bit. She is the only human being who, for the last five years, I've been around every single day. I'm not a "people" person. I expect our relationship is going to improve even more (it improved the first time when I started working) now that she is in school and will be more independent of me. I write all of that to share with you that I understand and have so much empathy for what it is like to be drained by people. It isn't that you don't want them there, dislike them or their company, it simply takes it out of you *hugs*

[miss-next.livejournal.com]

I recognise a lot of the later parts of this. I'm an introvert too, though it isn't obvious to most people because I am a highly sociable introvert. I like people. I like people a lot. However, I do need time on my own to recharge when I've been in other people's company for too long, with certain exceptions (all of whom, incidentally, are also introverts). I've never seen this as any reflection on either myself or other people; it's just the way I operate. I suppose it's rather like swimming. No matter how much you like swimming, you can't spend all your time in the water and it wouldn't be safe to try. You have to get out and do other things.

As for the anxiety, I think the first thing to do is probably to set a small and achievable goal that you really want - like getting to a certain level in Japanese - and then thinking about where you want to go after you've achieved that one. The thing with anxiety (and I should know, because I still have it, although it's very well under control now and mostly relegated to the background) is that it tends to make huge goals look much more daunting than they really are. If I'd said to myself, "Right, now I am going to design and make a really awesome embroidered waistcoat," I'd probably have scared myself senseless. I had to break it up. First of all it was: "I am going to transfer the basic lines of the 19th-century paisley pattern to a grid on a computer where I can work with it." That's quite hard, but not too hard. Then it was: "I am going to get a waistcoat pattern and alter it to what I think are the right measurements, and then make a mock-up." Next: "I am going to work out the scale I need for the paisley-based design, put it on a large piece of graph paper, and trace it onto the waistcoat front pattern pieces." Next: "I am going to embroider this basic repeating design in place." I'm on that stage at the moment, and the final stage will be "I am now going to start freely ornamenting it," by which point it actually won't be hard, because I will have the background design there to use as a base.

One step at a time, and you can fool your anxiety into thinking it's not a problem. ;-)