it's been 2 months since the last time i wrote something here. i've started drafts (i started a piece about my goals for the next three months, and another piece that was a comprehensive review of the batman) but never ended up finishing anything. at this point i'm trying to force myself to just brain dump anything and get it out, and i don't really know what's going to come out of this.
i'm writing this from my bed, which is a rare occurrence. one of the few things i'm actually disciplined about is never doing any type of work in bed. i don't know if it's some subconscious thing about my bed being a place of rest, which is ironic because whenever i'm stressed about anything i become insomniac and find it almost impossible to get good sleep.
i finished college in december. i've been at home since then in what has been probably the weirdest period of my life. it never really hit me, but this is the first time in my life since probably elementary school that i have no responsibilities whatsoever. absolutely nothing on my mind. (even in middle school i would always be doing some summer camp or taking a future class early or something). and when you sit back and think about it, that probably applies to you too. when's the last time that you went to sleep knowing that you had absolutely nothing to deal with the following day when you wake up?
it's a weird feeling, because in a way i almost didn't even know how i would handle it or what it would be like. people always say stuff like "i'm so used to working that i don't even know how to relax anymore," but how can we really evaluate that when the responsibilities of life (school, job, etc.) make it impossible to ever fully relax? even when you come home from work, it's impossible to untether yourself from the reality that you have work tomorrow. when you're at home for summer break, you always have the impending realization that you have summer homework, or you need to be preparing for your next year's classes, or whatever.
the way it's actually manifested for me has been kind of odd. the best way i can describe it is that my life feels like a collection of paradoxes.
Paradoxes
the nature of work
i have no responsbilities. and yet, i'm outputting code and building at the fastest rate of my life. and yet, even though every bit of work that i do during this time is technically "optional," a lot of the time when i take a break i feel kind of guilty for blowing time that i could have spent building more stuff (that one's a nested paradox 🤯)
working without conviction
here's another one. i don't consider myself to be a very hard worker at all. and i don't mean that in a humble brag kind of way, but more in the sense that i don't really tend to be highly convicted about the work i do.
i recognize that i objectively do work, and i have accomplishments to be proud of. but i think that the root cause of this is: 1. stress about not achieving my desired outcomes and 2. an innate hatred for stagnation. basically, i am a machine that operates as a function of being scared that i won't get something that i am hopeful for (a good grade, a good job, etc.). and on top of that, i really hate staying the same. i think of it sort of like a manifestation of shiny object syndrome; i get bored and frustrated if i'm not moving forward. once i hit some benchmark, i don't really care anymore and i want to move on to the next one.
notably, neither of those at a root level are doing work because i'm highly motivated to do the work. i thought i knew this about myself. i'm a lazy person that does work because the pain of dealing with the consequences of not doing the work and the boredom i feel when i'm not making progress on something outweigh the allure of being lazy.
there's the second paradox: i don't have any stress, and i'm not really "progressing" towards anything right now. this should be a prime period of laze. and yet, i'm working on the things i'm building with an almost obsessive conviction, to the point where i find myself zoning out sometimes when i'm eating or watching tv or doing anything that's not work, and thinking about work. why?
i'm still working on figuring that one out myself.
lazy
and yet, despite being so productive, i'm oh so horribly lazy. i shave like once a week, because who cares? no one's seeing me anyway. i try to keep my sleep schedule within regular human hours, but it hasn't been perfect. i find myself waking up past 12 sometimes despite my best efforts.
so what's driving me to be so intensely motivated despite no external stressors in some areas, and yet be so horribly lazy in others?
i'm still trying to figure that one out too.
conclusion
i feel like we are supposed to know ourselves better than we know anyone. and for the most part, that's true.
but the most unexpectedly eye-opening discovery for me during this time has been how little i actually understand so many things about me.
i still don't really know what drives me, or what makes me tick. i thought i knew myself well enough to know that i don't do things unless i have to or i'm bored. but apparently i'm more diligent than i give myself credit for.
but it feels like my mind has a mind of its own (pun intended i guess?). i'm still trying to figure out why i work on the things i do, and what i value.
i'm really glad that i have this "interim" period of my life, in between school and starting work. as it turns out, being able to sit with yourself and examine how you behave when the only thing making you do things is that you want to do things is a great environment for better understanding who you are and how you work. i never got around to writing that thing about my goals, but i think i can say now that i only really have one that matters. i hope that by the end of these three months, i'm at least a little bit closer to having the answers to some of my paradoxes. i hope i'm a step closer to figuring out what really drives me.