Not my strong suit.
First, let me make it clear at the outset : goals are good. In fact, they are amazingly good. I know I would be better off if I set small, achievable goals for myself.
I should know because they droned on about that constantly at the Core Program at psych outpatients at Richmond Hospital.
They wanted to talk about the goals we set and how we achieved them, how that made us feel, and so on. If we failed our goals we talked about that and how maybe we should set smaller goals next time. Etc etc blah blah blah.
I have no doubt that this methodology works extremely well in both clinical trials and field tests and I find no fault in it at all on that level.
But it sure as fuck didn’t work on me. Not only was I not inclined to do it emotionally (not defending that) but I was not capable of it intellectually.
I was far more severely depressed at the time and my executive dysfunction made the whole notion of choosing a goal then formulating a plan of action and executing in order to achieve that goal laughably out of reach.
So I just lied. It was easier. And I didn’t even care that I was lying.
It’s amazing how callous you can be when you’re dead on the inside.
Anyhow, forcibly jerking this discourse back to the topic, I have never been any good at setting goals, much to my detriment.
I can’t even get past Step 1 because of my problem with indecision. How does one even choose a goal when there are so many possibilities?
It’s my old nemesis, the infinite hallway of infinite doors, all over again.
I had a goal once : write for TV. Went to college for a year just to qualify. Did the program. Wracked up $25K debt to do it.
But my teachers didn’t like me so that went nowhere.
Other than that, I have never set goals for myself then driven myself to achieve said goals. I have nothing against the idea, it’s just not my style.
It all seems like too much pressure and stress for my laissez faire personality.
But that is not written in stone. The real missing ingredient is inspiration. When I get inspired, I can do amazing things.
I mean, I wrote a million words in 11 months based on one wacky inspiration, FFS. Other times I made a whack of videos. And I had a lot of fun doing it.
It was also frustrating, draining, confusing, and occasionally downright painful.
But hey, that’s art. Excellence is never cheap.
So at least in theory, if I could find another crazy goal, I could inspire myself into something like productivity again.
This time, I might even put the products of my inspiration somewhere where people can actually find them and see them.
Maybe even people who might know people who know people who are in the industry.
What a wild idea!
More after the break.
I think I am ready
Ready to at least start thinking about escaping my (s)hell and venturing out into the world to find my fortune, or at least a normal life.
Today was Therapy Thursday and I was talking about this with Doc Costin. I told him that I felt more capable of taking action than ever before and that some of that deep black ice that torments me was melting and that I was feeling more vigorous and alive than I had in a very long time.
I feel like my region and I are experiencing spring at the same time.
Ain’t that somethin’?
Of course, I am realistic enough to recognize that my debut will be virtual. That would be true even if there wasn’t a pandemic on.
The secret to progress is baby steps and for me, that means staying in my comfort zone of my computer and the internet while expanding my virtual world to include new people and new situations and avenues of self-expression.
My first try at this was a bust. I was all ready to dazzle the Cracked editors on the Cracked forums but the Cracked forums are gone. Kaput.
I think the people behind Cracked – people I used to like and admire and want to emulate – have completely checked out. The forums are gone, the last episode of the podcast is “How wacky will the 2020 election be?”, the articles are getting increasingly shallow and contrived.
My guess is they have a stable of freelancers that do all the work and all my heroes just see the site as a machine that shits money now.
That was depressing.
My next point of entry is Reddit, but it’s so vast and there are so many subReddits that it seems impossible to choose one.
It’s not, of course. People do it all the time. It’s only my own strange mind that tries to process everything in parallel that can’t handle too many options.
The sane thing to do would be to browse ones that seem interesting until I find some I like and try sticking my oar in there.
I think the problem is that I want to know what I am getting into. And that works great for some situations but for others it’s simply impossible.
Exploration is the only option.
Yeah, about that.
I was also talking to Doc Costin today about being too scared to explore for most of my life. And how this led to my trying to anticipate and make rational adjustments and thus control my world.
I called it “conquering the world with my mind”.
And it is powerful. But far too limited. The amount you can actually anticipate, predict, and so on in life is actually very small and if you try to live by that parody of rationality, your life will be pretty small too.
And small cages make growth impossible. I am really feeling that lately.
So I am going to learn to embrace unpredictability and risk. You can’t ever totally control outcomes without stifling your soul and leading a very stunted kind of life.
Fuck that shit.
I want out.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.