I don’t want to talk about it

I received an email the other day from a good friend of mine. It was about a topic we have discussed numerous times. Something we both liked and then began to dislike and eventually started to laugh at. Now often, I find myself doing things for other people. Like indulging them when it comes to things that I don’t particularly want to talk about. Online fandom is something that I strive to stay away from. I think it is reaching that point where the fan/celebrity relationship is essentially a full on disguised supplier/consumer relationship, except celebrities and public figures are selling some version of their lives and fans are buying into it. That’s their choice.

For me, I am glad that I got myself out of it. However, my friend is still very much kind of involved and sometimes I don’t mind. Other times the things she says are just…irrelevent to me. It’s like, ‘hey, this person still exists and these people are still stupid LOL’ and fine, we can laugh about it, but at some point, I need to move on entirely. 

A world full of pretense

I never really know how my day is going to pan out.

Well.

Maybe I do.

There are two types of days that I have. Either it flies by – hours passing rapidly each time I look at a clock – or it drags. The days when it drags are the worse. I can sit there for what seems like hours, just thinking about life. Usually, I’m wondering if this is it. This is as good as it gets. Hope doesn’t exist for me. I’ve been sad for so long that a day of calm nothingness is something I welcome. Sadness never really goes away. The older I get, the harder it gets to pretend that I’m okay with being alone. On the other hand I don’t know how not to be alone. I have plain old anxiety, social anxiety – probably more but to me that’s normal. Being a wreck is normal. I’m tired of it. Every year I declare that this will be the year of change and every year I revert back to old habits. Shut myself away from the world. I’m scared of being burnt. So I stay away from the flickering flame that masquerades as life.

Some days, I want to live a little. See what’s out there. Show people that I’m not that quiet, weird girl.

Other days I just want to be left alone. I don’t want to join the charade or pretend that life is this amazing thing I’m missing out on. When you fade away into the background, you see things for what they are. Some might call me jaded.

Maybe I am.

But I don’t pretend. In a world full of pretenders, I’m one of the anomalies. It’s kind of fucked up because apparently that’s normal. Or society’s perception of normal. Pretending is normal.

I don’t want to squeeze myself into that box but yet, the weight of not fitting in is heavy. Tiring. It shouldn’t be this way but it is.

It’s okay to be different but only if you’re the right kind of different. All of the rules make no sense but people live by them. How they don’t find it overwhelming is a mystery to me.

Perhaps they’re pretending.

I wonder if that means that I’m tired of being real.

Assume that no one else matters

It’s kind of funny that the Daily Prompt is this: Key Takeaway

The key takeaway is that one must always write for themselves. Write content that you would read – not what you think people will read. Be yourself.

Some other points:

• Broaden your horizons. A blog about everything will probably give you freedom when writing. One day you might post about a potato, and the next it might be Barney the Dinosaur.
• Conversely, don’t narrow your subject. Creating a blog about one thing and one thing only can leave you in a tricky predicament of getting bored of it.
• Accept that no one will read it. Well. I’m sure you’ll get some readers but the WordPress stats page can be a dangerous place. On my other blog I went through periods where I was getting hundreds of views a day and I was like, ‘YAY, PEOPLE ARE READING!!’ and now, with the updated stats, I see that people are reading posts about one thing and some posts that I put time and effort into are getting scarce views. Does it matter? Nope. It might feel bad, but hey….

Like I said, you’ve got to write for yourself 🙂

Hiatus

I am coming up to quite a busy time period, not that you’d know it given how much I seem to procrastinate. Anyway, so I have a blog that was initially about something. In the beginning, I got little response. I didn’t mind really, it was just a place to express myself. And then people found me and I got some attention. After a while, it went from me writing for myself to me writing for my ‘audience’. The trouble is that my audience are only interested in one thing and now I feel uncomfortable posting random silly things on it. And the original purpose of the blog has passed really. It served a purpose and I’ll always hold it in high regard.

However, I feel like a puppet master performing to an audience. So I’m moving here for the time being. I will probably go back to it but right now I need to just be able to spit out words without putting on an act and trying too hard to make it humorous. I need to be myself for once.

Deadlines, deadlines, deadlines…

I am what some would call lax towards deadlines. There’s just something about a deadline that makes me leave it so I’m panicking in the week before, rushing around as if I haven’t had months to do. The issue, I suspect, is my waning attention span. I am unfocused and prone to distraction. It’s gotten to the point where I’m sure that I waste time trying to do things on time. I can sit and stare at a blank screen for hours, months in advance, willing the words to come. Quite often, the mental plan is for me to sit in one place for a day and write or do the bulk of the task. It’s weird that the time period can be quite lengthy but my actual working hours are low. I’ve improved in recent times. What I do is start the task and do it so that it is at least half complete. I then do small bits here and there. That works with minor projects, but major ones? Not really. I’m struggling right now to just put down a simple methods and results section – arguably the easiest part of the paper. My word count is a paltry 1500 words and the full 6000-8000 draft is due in a month. I know that week before that day will be rough.

People always chide me for leaving things to the last minute despite me telling them that I don’t. And I suspect most people don’t. It just happens that those last few moments are where I’m most focused. Obviously I wish it wasn’t that way. It’s crazy and not good if you have anxiety. Things like word block usually crop up just to make you feel like shit. It is just messy. However, I like to think that the panic drives me to do well. That I’m so busy kicking my ass for running out of time that my brain opens up and pours out wisdom and excellence along with the blood and sweat.

In my mind, I’m that marathon runner who starts off slow and makes a late surge at the end.

There’s a new epidemic in town and it’s called self-promotion.

Self promotion isn’t necessarily a bad thing. How will you get that perfect job, or that perfect relationship if you don’t believe in yourself? You won’t. If done tastefully, self-promotion is absolutely fine. However in the age of social media and instant updates, it has grown to be a huge thing that leaves a sour taste in the mouth. These days, it’s masked as being ‘who you are’ and sharing your experiences with others. People are encouraged to post countless selfies and trade their confidence for compliments. We have people posting every thing they do for some kind of recognition, even though at the end of the day, sometimes they’re just not that special. Sometimes we don’t need to see a timeline of your perfect life. Especially when we know that it isn’t real. It’s an illusion.

We have people using charitable acts to prove that they have depth and character but if all one knows about your campaign is that you support it, something isn’t quite right. There’s the humblebragger, the person who’s constantly buying new things, the person who refuses to stop until everyone has seen whatever they want to promote. The people who can’t see beyond their own melodrama long enough to give a damn about anyone else.

In the midst of that, there’s one thing I always notice. Those who are so well versed in self-promotion are always the first to kick other people down. They’re always the first to pass judgement. They’re always the ones who complain about being judged. They’re the people who never want to be held accountable for what they say. Yet, they self-promote the good in their lives and ignore their own negative qualities.

Life is all about learning from mistakes. The bad stuff can’t be erased and replaced with good things. The past isn’t a mirage, it’s a huge scribble, drawn permanent marker. You can’t look at one part without seeing the rest.

If it isn’t worth bragging about, maybe you shouldn’t do it.

Learn how to be humble and appreciative.

Don’t be an asshole.

Focus on good attributes and not materialistic items.

Promote realities and not dreams.

If you want to raise awareness for a good cause, don’t make it all about you because in the long run, it won’t help anybody.

Be real, because at the end of the day, there’s alway going to be someone who can’t spot the difference between something genuine and something fake.

Things I don’t understand.

Life, for one.

I don’t understand life.

I don’t understand human beings. I really don’t.

Lately, it feels like a lot of people are pretending. They want to be seen as nice, fair, kind but they don’t seem to want to put the work into being those things.

So they jump.

They find ways to make themselves look better and hope to hell others believe it. They don’t acknowledge their mistakes.

That, to me, is the deal breaker.

You’ve got to acknowledge your mistakes for me to believe that you’re genuine. Or at least have the guts to say you’re not sorry for what you did, but don’t pretend. Don’t act like it didn’t happen. Don’t make yourself out to be the victim when once upon a time, you were the perpetrator.

It’s dishonest.

It’s not healthy.

It won’t end well.

Today I felt happy for the first time in a long time…

…and then it faded and I’m ending the day like I did yesterday, wracked with anxiety that I can’t seem to control.

Basically, I couldn’t sleep and was up early, thinking about life and I how feel like I’ve not really done much. The usual self-pitying crap. I told a friend and we did that usual song and rhyme where she tried to make me feel better and I thanked her but felt the same. Eventually, I fell asleep and was woken up and I found out some good news. Really good news. I passed my university exams. I mean, I don’t know how well I’ve done but…considering that I flunked them all last year (and repeatedly in life), I was ecstatic. I was shocked, surprised – you name it. That didn’t last long. I mean, I felt a sense of relief but after a while I just felt cold. Empty. And this is something my entire life revolves around. Why am I not feeling overjoyed? It all circles back t how I haven’t done much. I feel like I shouldn’t be happy because this is what’s expected. After all the fuck up’s I had to pass. I’ve spent the last two weeks trying to talk myself into some semblance of calm. What I’d do if things didn’t work out and then boom. It’s kind of like all of that energy is just gone.

I just don’t know where. I don’t know why it feels like I can’t breathe when for the first time in a long time, I actually have breathing room. I can actually breathe. I can start planning my studies for next year, keep on with the work experience I’m trying to do in my chosen field. I can rest a little.

There are outside factors at play, I know that but I’m a little sad that I couldn’t give myself one day.