So, let's talk about personal projects
I have this thing that I've been sitting on for about 10 years now.
A filebox half-filled with random works tied to a central theme and story, but I simply FAIL at patching it all together into any coherent compilation.
It's more like 90% research, written articles, lexicons and artwork, and like 10% writing.
Everybody has a novel they've been working on, and I don't want to be one of those guys who has one of those closet items where friends and peers are always constantly asking "how's that novel you've been working on?"--tongue-in-cheek. I don't want to be any of those people with a "Check out my magnum opus!" wad of bullshit. I don't want to be those types of people, but my reason isn't so I can be some emo hipster pseudophilosophical cumdumpster bitching about wanting to be original. I don't like it because I don't want to fall into that groove for the sake of its notoriety of yielding a failed pile of feces, or at best, a mediocre epitaph that would make its owner's tombstone shed tears of embarrassment.
So, what do I do to cope? I do exactly what I don't want, and slip more and more from the frame of mind required to continue. I wouldn't say there's a lack of confidence--I write things all the time for other things that take off very well. I think the problem is that in this case it's MY work, meaning I pay too much attention to doing everything carefully lest I fuck something up. It's why I'm so goddamn meticulous with making sure what I want to convey is unhindered by shortcuts and bullshit.
I don't even know if I want to convey anything to the world, exactly. The more I think about it, the more I think that in the end I want something tangible that reflects my own inner thoughts and imagination. I want to see the reflection of my own soul, and something that makes 100% sense to me.
What's sad is that I feel that as each day goes by I lose more and more of what I used to have. I'm not happy with my life, and I've gone down almost every road that people have warned me about when I was a kid (except drugs and alcoholism). I'm not depressed, because I rarely wallow in regret, with the exception of this current entry to a random blog I never use anymore, and it motivates me to make a better life for myself. And despite myself growing more cynical over time, I'm generally optimistic about things.
Except one minor thing I guess. I don't really trust people anymore, at least with non material concerns. I'm fine with that, but it obviously cuts me off from people at a certain point in friendships or relationships. I know that somewhere down the line I'm going to have to readjust all of that.
The matter at hand is that this disappointing turnout AND my increasing lack of faith in people (which somehow extends to myself) has affected my creativity as well, which is really the main thing I'm lamenting at this moment. Sure, time has bottlenecked my ability to pursue any of this. But when I add all of these factors together I seem to be finding that my window of inspiration keeps narrowing more and more--so much so that when I do find these seldom pockets of time that I have a hard time trying to pick up where I left off.
In the end, I just feel so cut off from my own self and the parts I once liked best about me. If I can't start wheeling out of this rut soon, it's going to just get worse from here on out.
A filebox half-filled with random works tied to a central theme and story, but I simply FAIL at patching it all together into any coherent compilation.
It's more like 90% research, written articles, lexicons and artwork, and like 10% writing.
Everybody has a novel they've been working on, and I don't want to be one of those guys who has one of those closet items where friends and peers are always constantly asking "how's that novel you've been working on?"--tongue-in-cheek. I don't want to be any of those people with a "Check out my magnum opus!" wad of bullshit. I don't want to be those types of people, but my reason isn't so I can be some emo hipster pseudophilosophical cumdumpster bitching about wanting to be original. I don't like it because I don't want to fall into that groove for the sake of its notoriety of yielding a failed pile of feces, or at best, a mediocre epitaph that would make its owner's tombstone shed tears of embarrassment.
So, what do I do to cope? I do exactly what I don't want, and slip more and more from the frame of mind required to continue. I wouldn't say there's a lack of confidence--I write things all the time for other things that take off very well. I think the problem is that in this case it's MY work, meaning I pay too much attention to doing everything carefully lest I fuck something up. It's why I'm so goddamn meticulous with making sure what I want to convey is unhindered by shortcuts and bullshit.
I don't even know if I want to convey anything to the world, exactly. The more I think about it, the more I think that in the end I want something tangible that reflects my own inner thoughts and imagination. I want to see the reflection of my own soul, and something that makes 100% sense to me.
What's sad is that I feel that as each day goes by I lose more and more of what I used to have. I'm not happy with my life, and I've gone down almost every road that people have warned me about when I was a kid (except drugs and alcoholism). I'm not depressed, because I rarely wallow in regret, with the exception of this current entry to a random blog I never use anymore, and it motivates me to make a better life for myself. And despite myself growing more cynical over time, I'm generally optimistic about things.
Except one minor thing I guess. I don't really trust people anymore, at least with non material concerns. I'm fine with that, but it obviously cuts me off from people at a certain point in friendships or relationships. I know that somewhere down the line I'm going to have to readjust all of that.
The matter at hand is that this disappointing turnout AND my increasing lack of faith in people (which somehow extends to myself) has affected my creativity as well, which is really the main thing I'm lamenting at this moment. Sure, time has bottlenecked my ability to pursue any of this. But when I add all of these factors together I seem to be finding that my window of inspiration keeps narrowing more and more--so much so that when I do find these seldom pockets of time that I have a hard time trying to pick up where I left off.
In the end, I just feel so cut off from my own self and the parts I once liked best about me. If I can't start wheeling out of this rut soon, it's going to just get worse from here on out.