~~~Warning: complete brain-vomited intuitive rant ahead. No critical thought was applied to the following post~~~
I think college/university being proverbial hell, isolation from family, forced to assimilate to a new culture and realise yourself for what you want to be, is no small part of why university is such a huge stepping stone and in a way, important to a younger person.
I regret working full-time and saving money when I was younger instead of moving away, living off scraps and whatever I could scrounge while going to university. My life has been too comfortable during my youth as a result of my 'practicality' and 'sensibility' and I'm weaker for it, almost delayed developmentally in a way. I lost passion for my own adult life before I was even an adult, committed to slovenly self-destructive habits that still torture me to this day. These are my rewards for my so-called 'responsible' and 'disciplined' approach to work at a young age.
Huh! This is an interesting perspective.
I thought getting a job and getting paid and saving up was rlly important and I've been stressing about having to do it soon
No one in my household is working right now and we're just living off savings. My dad did physical work until he hurt his back months ago, then he got Lyme disease, so he's really not able to do that job anymore. Which is where our money was coming from.
I've been saying I'll try to find some work this school year- I have to get my license and keep up with school work though.
But ugh there's definitely pressure for me to get a job.
And that's out of my comfort zone-- I've been on Zoloft for almost a year but I still definitely get anxiety in certain situations, and this has been stressing me out.
Ahh
Wow ok this turns into a sad rant pretty fast
But yeah I've been planning to find some work and have a
'responsible' and 'disciplined' approach to it, at my young age.
Taking on responsibilities really freaks me out, because i get thinking that I'm not going to be able to figure things out quick enough, or I'll be late all the time, and I'll be an awkward mess and embarrass myself and disappoint people and give the company a bad name and I'll hate myself and become a self loathing crying mess who believes she can't do anything right again :,)))
(((Which is hat happened last year when I was a c.i.t. at a summe camp,, that was
horrible)))
And then I feel stupid and lame even talking about my anxiety too much, because in the end excuses are excuses and anxiety is just a thing and I have to stop being a baby because I'm almost old enough to live on my own and be an 'adult', etc...
ungh I don't know. I feel like a freshman. I don't feel like a junior, I didn't even feel like a sophomore last year, I feel connected to the age 14, and I'm scared to move on because I feel like a fish out of water.
It's probably cuz I never had a whole freshmen year experience. I got no closure and i feel like I only got half the year done. I perpetually feel like I'm still in the middle of ninth grade.
(I had some sorta breakdown or whatever you'd call it that year. Horrible, horrible anxiety and emotional problems, like actually fcking crazy. Psychs wanted me locked up- and I felt like I desperately needed that too- but my parents wouldn't hear of it. They thought I was being a bitch on purpose to be mean to them. God that year was awful.)
This is probably some complicated psychological problem with repression or other
I have a therapist but like she's not that helpful. Can't switch because insurance things though.
One thing I'm looking forward to about going back to school is that I'll have access to the school psychologist again :,D she's so great and smart and we're on the same wavelength so we can actually talk. She's so calming. I just want to sit on her floor forever.
^
Wanting to sit on floors and hide and be near a grown up I deem as "safety" does not seem like grown up behavior. Something's wrong. Something must be messed up with me because that's not normal and it's shitty to want to be coddled like a little kid
I miss my aunt
She was like a mother to me
My mom doesn't give off the warm caring vibes my aunt did.
She's always been more shut off that way
im crying again like a fcking baby
I'm such a mess this is so inconvenient
My (almost) obsession with the relative practicality of whatever task I'm currently committed to, and the ability to find flaw and fault in any direction I opt to take is, I believe, very much to do with the fact that I resigned myself to a life of mediocrity as early as 15-16, where I decided to just accept I wasn't special and that I'd simply work and take what pleasures I could, where I could. 10 years later I'm closer to 30 than 20 and I'm now filled with this realisation that my life has literally been pointless - I've followed the social trends of doing what's "reasonable" and "practical" and put myself in a position where, with my acquired and inherent skillset and abilities - I realistically could have a number of decently paying jobs, yet none of which would satisfy me on a personal, intellectual, emotional or soulful level.
Some goals I have for my life are
• to do something with this story my friend and I have- preferably an animated series or comics
-which would require some sort of extensive training in art, animation technology and techniques, storytelling, and or comic book drawing and stuff
-plus some more psychological and philosophical studying because we want the story to introduce people to a bunch of cool theories and themes and ideas. It's ambitious and idealistic of us but we want it to be almost an allegorical manifesto
• another idealistic one: make a bunch of money so I can give back to my parents, and use the money I have to help causes I believe in and make the world a better place. I'd especially love to help people who are homeless and struggling, God just walking through New York City rips my heart out.
• travel a bit and learn a language (as many as I can tbh)
-I'd love to stay in Norway for a while, and Sweden, France, Ireland, Scotland, Portugal, the Caribbean perhaps?, check out the national parks in the US, go to New Zealand .. etc..
- I'm learning French in school. I'd love to learn some Scandinavian language too. I'm French, Irish, German and Swedish- I'd love to connect to those cultures more because they're a part of who I am
So I sit and do what I always did, which is not so different than what you do now Nebulous - which is to see all the problems and the struggles, to rationalise and to embrace contrarianism, finding solace in friends with no ambition, who seems listless and rebellious at heart - but whose rebellion is not at all genuine, soulful or strong - rather it's weak. To be truly rebellious is to thrive within the system given, to accept that we are all part of the system, but to bend it around you in ways that defy the natural order the system would attempt to impose on you and to eventually, create your own system that runs counter-intuitive to the established, that allows for the realisation (or if not the realisation, at the very least, the pursuit and chasing of your realisation) of yourself.
Don't give up. School is fucked. University is fucked. But your task isn't to finish school and university, and then to end up in some pre-meditated pathway that feels arbitrarily prescribed by others, as if by an over-eager doctor keen to fulfil the quotas of some pharmaceutical company. No, it's to acquire the systematic skills you need to build your own system.
Be better than me if you can, or at least start on what I intend to start while you're still young. I'm not even that old, but 10 years is a lot. What I could have achieved in any multitude of areas, had I committed to doing so at 16. 3 hours a day, 365 days a year, and I'd have reached more than 10,000 hours of commitment and one would say under certain parameters I'd be a 'master' of something by now.
Whatever it is you want to do, just do it. One hour a day, two, three. Whatever you want, just do it every day. Don't think about your ability at it relative to others - do the other things you need to do to succeed in the system. That expands to high-school, university, work, relationships, but do the thing you most love as well. Every single day. I regret moving to a smaller place where I can't set up my drum-kit, I feel broken even though I was rarely playing it in recent years. Just looking at it was like looking at the best friend I ever had, the friend who was always there to make my eardrums tingle and give me early ear damage and piss off my neighbours if I ever really needed to or felt that urge.
I don't know what you love, I don't know what you cherish, but foster it and grow it, nurture it and don't let it go for anyone or anything. It doesn't mean you'll make anything of it, but it is at least, symbolic of _YOU_. Drumming was that to me, and it seemed so easy to rationalise and just say, "well I don't play them that often these days, neighbours are around, I can't really make that much noise" etc etc. and it seems infinitely ridiculous to me that I lament them so much every time I hear a song - but I know now how my dad has felt all these years, and how it felt to be separated from HIS drumming.
He would tell me that he can't drum just on and off, he can't do it for anything less than his life, or else it's just too hard to continue, to enjoy it and to thrive on it. And I understand it. I've resisted that notion, rejected it for all sorts of reasons, but deep down I know why. But deep down I also know that his response is NOT right, to give up and waste his soul away and slaving to that which he hates because it's "practical" and "necessary" and whatever other stupid fucking reasons people give. I know that it's my "job" to make sure that I pursue what I love with fervor and take joy in what I pursue always, even if its limited and it feels terrible to be constantly limited in my ability to enjoy it.
So do what you love, take joy in it. Don't forget it and don't sacrifice it for others - because it's not worth it. Just don't. Don't do what seems reasonable and correct within the context of "the system" if it crushes your very soul. But don't throw the system away entirely, and become useless and incapable of self-sufficiency either.
Or something like that anyway.
*deep breath*
*hits post*
tl;dr - more reasons to finish this fucking English course.
Thank you so much for taking the time and energy to write this. It means a lot and I'm really grateful to see another perspective into life, Ah. Thank you.
----
Btw English progress:
87.5% done
12.5% to go
But there are three essays I have to do
I haven't gotten to the last one yet
- also I've been waiting forever to say this, but fuck this stupid elephant. It's my most hated emoticon on the entire site. Fuck you elephant emoticon.
(with blowjobbing out of proportion
)