I’m trying to experiment with a few (even) more personal pieces on this blog.
It’s not a series of blog posts, although some may relate to one another to an extent.
This one in particular has been in sitting my drafts for a couple of weeks, and in my head for even longer.
A few weeks ago while walking the streets of a new city, a sudden, anxious feeling absorbed me. It was a dreading feeling. A sort of lack of belonging.
I figured that made sense: I was in another country after all. But then it got me thinking about how I’d been feeling in general for a while. Not just while traveling, but at home, too.
In the last few months, I visited four countries. As it’s been established before, I love traveling. However, in these last few occasions, something felt off.
At times I didn’t feel like I was enjoying the experiences; I had racing thoughts of “can we get over this?” constantly.
Mind you, I was trying fantastic food, looking at beautiful landscapes, experiencing new music festivals.
And yet I wanted parts of those moments to just be over.
It hit me at one point that I was visiting a place I had wanted to visit forever, and I was barely present. The mind aloof.
Now, it’s not like I found the root cause, let alone the solution. But I have been analyzing it, and now that I have some free time on my hands (the perks of unemployment), it might be a good time to sit down with my thoughts for a while, and jot some of them down.
In the process of tracing the origin of these thoughts, I found other instances of similar oxymorons.
And I wanted to put them all in writing.
Busy And Unproductive
Oftentimes I find myself juggling several things at once. Multitasking is a skill I’ve developed by chance over the years, and while it can be helpful for some things, it can hurt just as much.
The problem is, the more things I do at the same time, the fewer I finish. And obviously, I’m even more absent from them.
I’ve had weeks just go by while I’m “busy” on several things at the same time, and when the weekend comes around I’m exhausted, and frustrated because I didn’t really finish anything.
Knowing what to focus on is just another skill I need to exercise more.
And not only that, keeping myself sooo busy with crap fucks my mind up in other ways:
- No time for a walk
- Not enough time to enjoy my coffee: just sip it by the computer
- No time to play with my cats (Freya reaaaally needs it, she’s getting chonky)
And there’s probably more…
But where did this come from?
There was a time when I would do exactly what I needed to do, work precisely on what I needed to work on. And then I would move on to, well, living. That changed over time so gradually that I didn’t notice until it was too late.
I think my job fucked me up and I didn’t notice: The pressure, the unrealistic expectations… While before I could complete my work and then find plenty of time to relax, suddenly I found myself juggling the tasks of probably 3 or 4 people all by myself.
My theory is that AI fucked with work perceptions and expectations.
Energized And Unmotivated
Show of hands: anyone else felt the 3am urge to change your life? To finally get out of the slump, practice whatever you like practicing almost religiously? You go “oh I’m getting out of bed at 6am, I’m going to work out, make myself a heck of a breakfast and I’ll conquer the world by noon.”
Then noon comes around, and you are still in bed.
When I was first drafting this post, and thinking about its outline, this subtitle — Energized And Unmotivated — made a lot of sense. It is a dichotomy fitting for this post, but then, lately, I’ve felt way more drained than energized. I sleep a lot and rarely get actual rest. I’m still figuring that out…
I think I need to write a post on how AI can fuck with our brains and the theories I have on what’s been going on with mine specifically. I feel I have unlimited power, I can build whatever I want, I can think of entire apps and have a prototype in a day. I can build several things at once … and not complete a single one.
Alone In Company
This one really hurts in a couple of ways.
I have a fantastic support network. Of that I’m perfectly aware, and incredibly thankful.
But, the mind plays its tricks…
Most lonely days are self-inflicted. That’s not always bad; I need my space, time alone with my mind. There is a limit, though, to what’s healthy, and I have a tendency to isolate. That’s when I get cranky, or moody. I’ve noticed that when I isolate like this, I fall into the energized-builder-trap from above more often, and I tend to feel absurdly drained. And then I want to be even more alone so I can “rest.” It’s a vicious cycle.
I’m going to wrap this one here. I feel like I could keep going and going and going, and I really want to move on to another one.
If you sat through this rambling, I appreciate you. Truly.