mallika2608

004 – feelings and human connection

Feeling really good about my previous word vomit. I love how it started off as a contemplation of my current work but ended on quite an artsy, floral note. I feel pretty proud of that last paragraph. I do like writing about my thoughts and feelings. I’m feeling a little anxious. I think it’s because I know that I need to go back to my tasks from my day job. The urge to quit is so strong. I feel like I’m Tom from 500 Days of Summer and Software Engineering is my “Greeting Cards”. I’m a perfectly adequate software engineer. I’m looking for what my architecture is, and I’m also looking for my Autumn. But I’m not in a movie, so I’m aware that I might not end up finding these.

My Summer wasn’t as nice as his. My Summer said goodbye over a text. My Summer didn’t offer to be friends. My Summer didn’t stay with me for 500 days, more like 50 if I’m being honest. My Summer wasn’t as clear about things from the start. Though I’m sure I would be in the same place even if she had been. I feel a lot of pain in my chest and my stomach and my heart these days. I think I should quit (work). I think I’ll hand in my notice at the end of this week. There’s so many tasks that I’ll have to think about before I quit. I wouldn’t know how to access half the things. Maybe I need to make a list of them.

I wonder if I should switch teams before trying to quit. I’ll get a temporary relief of a few weeks, at least. I do care about my manager though. I’m worried about breaking the news to him.

Continuing this after around five days. Things have changed a little bit. I got a little bit of family time and outdoors time and time with animals. I decided I might try to talk to a couple of different teams to at least see what’s out there. I might start some medication to help with some of the anxiety. The doctor seems to think it’ll help me cope with the external stressors. The logic makes sense – everyone faces external stresses like work problems, relationship problems, bad days – but the lens of my anxiety makes everything worse. If medication can help me curb the anxiety a bit, I can cope with these problems as a normal human being would. Trying to change the environment and removing external stressors is probably fixing the wrong issue. Of course needing some breathing room is normal, but if I get breathing room then I might be less motivated to start the medication. Anyway, we’ll see how it goes.

I want to get better at connecting with people. I want to become better at being honest and confident and silly at the same time. I know how to get there, but I don’t have enough time and opportunities to practice this. Mainly because of the pandemic.
I feel a bit greedy about this whole thing – what am I looking for? What am I seeking? Is there some other unmet need that I’m confusing with this?

Continuing this after a few hours. I got closer to some of my family this weekend. I like it – one of the nicest things in the world is thinking you know someone and then getting to know them more. Life is so much better when I am intentional about the people I spend my time with. I think sometimes I end up spending a lot of time with people I don’t really like that much – either because of social obligations or because of circumstances. But man that is a terrible way to live.

Anyway, these moments of getting to know someone more. They’re nice moments, moments of unexpected vulnerability, often. Vulnerability that doesn’t necessarily come from the stories these people might be telling me, but from what their voices sounds like when they’re talking about these stories. From whether they meet my eyes while telling me those stories. From the way they smile or from the way their faces move when they’re reacting to my reactions or my questions. From the way they look at another person, if it’s a story that has shared ownership. From the way you can ask a person something but find out more about the person sitting next to them than the original recipient of the question.
It’s a nice little activity, giving someone your full attention and enjoying it – for reasons that are beyond my understanding. Of course one of them is the fact that I get some of it back in return. I’m sure sitting in a park and giving a stranger my full attention from afar isn’t going to be as great.

I’d recently met someone who I could describe as outgoing and friendly and yet not looking to connect. Years ago I would have never known the difference. But I think we finally connected a little today. It was quite nice.

I’m roughly at 800 words here. Reminds me of the time in school where we’d laugh about how we can fill up the word count by rambling on and/or stating the same point in different ways. It’s true, we can. I often used to have a problem with concise writing as well. The number of hours I’ve spent trying to cut down sentences to not cross the word-limit, oh boy. Yet, I find myself out of related thoughts at the moment. Slowly trudging on, trying to get a 100 more words out on this note.
This is nice little fun thing to do – taking ordinary experiences and activities and making stories out of them. I suppose it’s an escape, maybe my ordinary life isn’t fun enough until I make a fantastical story about it. That’s not fully true though – I’m being a little harsh on myself – I’m sure I must have felt moved enough in those moments for thoughts about them to persist hours and days later.

003 – work and the “corporate world”

I’ve been feeling terribly stressed at work. It’s been a few months, and I haven’t quit yet. Multiple reasons for it of course – the pandemic, lack of a plan, visa issues, the effort of team-switching, the fear and possibility of quitting but still feeling equally bad about life and of course, sunk-cost.

As I contemplate, I of course think about what changed over the last (almost) 8 years. I’m pretty sure I never loved programming, but I never disliked it as much as I seem to be doing these days. I suppose I always saw programming as a means to an end and the ends aren’t exciting anymore.

The ends at the time were “solving cool tech problems” and maybe a “successful career in tech”, or so I told myself. But they were also

money,
prestige,
communal, societal and familial validation and
this general, vague, weird idea of success.

Well – I have those things now – so the external motivators are gone. Of course, I hope there was some sort of intrinsic motivator of wanting to be good at whatever I do, but it seems like that’s not enough (anymore).

So, the pandemic really did bring a bunch of shit to the forefront.

There’s a part of me which wonders how I ended up here. Well, my upbringing, of course. I’m sure there’s people who knew they weren’t cut out for this. But I didn’t. And maybe I could have been. But I don’t feel it anymore.

I spoke to my sister-in-law recently about all of this and as I started talking along the lines of “well I’m not sure, maybe I don’t need to derive joy out of my work?” and she, very strongly, disagreed. And I’ve been speaking to a few people about this, and I’ve received strong opinions on both sides of this, and I’m still very impressionable, so I keep swinging. (Side-rant about how kids can be so impressionable, how does one navigate the danger of imprinting a false belief in a child’s mind?)

But then I think about what else I could do instead. I’ve been playing around with the idea of writing and/or photography. Those are the two things I’ve enjoyed in the last few years as my hobbies. And I do really enjoy both the activities – of course I don’t know whether I can get paid for those or not, and I don’t know whether I have the skills to even consider those options (and here’s the funny part – i’m really scared of the answer to both of these questions being “no”). But the longer I don’t quit my current job, the longer I’m putting of really seeking the answers to these questions.

I have a few thoughts about writing. I finally started these word-vomits, just as a test to see whether I can even write. And the idea currently is that we concentrate on quantity, not quality. (Because we know that generally works). But what happens once that’s done? What happens once I do write a 100 word-vomits? I’m supposed to increase my goal. I think I’m already scared that I’m not going to want to go further. What if I’d done everything right, and still failed? What if I’d gotten that writing degree, and still failed? I guess it doesn’t matter.

People often say there is no end to introspection. If that’s the case, a 100 word-vomits should be pretty easy. If not, it’ll be cool to have gotten everything off my chest.

Just checked my word count on this. I’ve been noticing a pattern. I’m able to get to 500-600 words on pretty much anything that I care about, pretty easily. How do I get to a 1000 words though? At some point it might start feeling forced to the reader. But the whole point of this project is to not worry about the reader. I find that I’m worrying about the quality again. I guess this what they call practice? Maybe after a few of these, I’ll be able to get to 700-800 words more easily. Feeling a little bit of excitement about maybe reaching that point. But I worry – if it’s the same thing happening again. I have a goal in mind, I’m writing to get to that goal. What happens when (or if) I don’t care about that goal anymore? I suppose I have to give myself the freedom to set potentially meaningless goals, even if they don’t result in anything. That’s what’s hard about life. To come back to the present, again and again and again. It’s kind of a meditation, I suppose.

My word-count tool just told me that the reading level on this is “9th-10th grade”. Oops. Well, I should change my tool. I’m not looking for judgement yet. I only need to focus on quantity.

I find this “stream of consciousness” style of writing very interesting. I can’t think of anything else that can capture something in such a raw manner? I can’t imagine a self-portrait which captures someone clicking (or painting) that self-portrait.

I’m noticing how my mood can affect the structure of a word vomit as well. I have a couple of these that are super clear, logical and structured. And I have a couple which are pretty all over the place. Might just call them public journal entries. And maybe that’s okay, I don’t really want to think about whether these might benefit anyone else. I can just think about the benefits I might reap from these. Maybe I’ll feel interesting things at the end of a 100,000 words. Maybe I won’t.

But I am also enjoying how thinking about wanting to write a few more words does not stress me out. I am just observing. And it’s easy to observe, it’s an inbuilt ability in humans, I believe. I am an ornithologist and my thoughts are like migratory seagulls. I am a scientist and my sinking heart is Newton’s falling apple. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Zero.

002 – sexuality

Alright folks, today I want to write about something I’ve been sitting on for a while. And that is – my ~discovering my sexuality~ journey. It’s been terribly complex (still is), but I think I finally have some answers – answers that come with their sweet share of complex emotions – but for the last couple months as I’ve been riding down an intense heartbreak, I’ve also slowly been recognizing and accepting a new immense relief that’s been coming around. Something that must only mean that I’m at least somewhat beyond the muddy cloud of “WTF DO I WANT”.

Weirdly, the last couple years have been full of a lot of open questions, most of which are still unanswered.. but over the last few months I’ve also just wanted to play around with writing a little bit more. @visakanv calls things like these word vomits, and i’d like to do the same. Right now this is just a note in my notes app, but I hope to set up a website or something in the next month or so, so I can start sharing them to a single sink.

So it seems that these answers come to me at a good time – a time where i’m motivated enough to try to make them coherent and share them out into the world.

However, writing, thinking and talking about sexuality, though extremely interesting, carries a big obvious problem with it. It involves “coming out”.

Now, coming out probably deserves a whole other word vomit by itself. It’s such a complex and personal act, so different for everyone. But I’ll try to write about it in the context of this piece. I was 18 when I’d realized that I’m not straight. So I picked the “bisexual” label for myself and then continued to do life “normally”. The people who needed to know knew about it and I was mostly comfortable enough with the idea of it. I did still operate on a “need to know” basis, and I think I still do, to a large extent, but I’ve been questioning it lately. I’ve always had a complex relation with “attention (seeking and receiving)” as well, and thus coming out was always something I’d been conflicted about.

One of the biggest problems I always had with the idea of coming out was context. And I know now as I write about it that this is a problem with anything that is important or vulnerable to me. How do I, when I tell someone something about myself, capture the confusion and the story that exists behind that piece of information? How can I say “I’m queer” without always wanting to talk about the whole story? How can I say “I’m currently exclusively dating women” and yet hold back this simultaneous thought of “I know I sound really sure about what I want but I question this everyday.” And today I realize this comes from an unnecessary need of wanting to be exactly right, all the time. Wanting to be be precisely correct, to really live up to what I say, to not say something if I’m not sure about it. Only recently I’ve accepted that I cannot fulfill this need for myself. I can try my best, but of course my thoughts and feelings are subject to change. Nobody else holds this almost crazy expectation from me (as people rarely do), it was mostly inherent.

Apart from context, there’s the second big one. Shame. Any queer person (person who’s queer? i’m not sure what the correct usage is at this point) can probably go on for ages about shame, I’m sure, but I’ll save you, the reader, from that, for now. But in general, of course shame is a big rock. Even once I was beyond my “own” feelings of shame, there’s the collateral shame to think about (i.e. shame that my close ones might feel about my sexuality). I sound really chill in this paragraph I know, but I’ve only recently slightly risen above that. And I needed a really strong close person to truly help me see that.

The third one, and this one sucks a little for me to accept because I haven’t seen enough dialog around it – but the third one is a very selfish one – the risk of losing “free” attention from men (right now, and.. maybe even forever?). Addressing this opens two questions up – 1/ do I even want attention from men – if so in what ways? 2/ maybe I just don’t want it right now, and it’s probably okay if i realize that i do want it later? (The second one again ties back into the initial problem of context, and how hard it is for me to accept that “right now” is all there is.) This problem I think is very normal, and yet a little hard to accept. It’s probably the same as staying in a relationship someone’s not completely happy with – because they risk losing some of the things they like – generally comfort, normalcy, some sort of happiness, even if it’s not fully real? So, yep. It’s that. But of course I know what lies at the other end – probably, attention that I do want. Attention that I will maybe value more, maybe like more, maybe like in different ways. Possibly, real happiness. Or at least, more answers. Or at least, new questions.

Now that I’ve acknowledged and addressed the three big problems with coming out, I can safely come out. I don’t know where on the Kinsey scale I lie and I don’t know what my labels are – but for now I’m exclusively dating women and identifying as queer.

Now that I’ve addressed coming out, I come back to sexuality. (Do you see how amazing it is to unthread the levels of thoughts and feelings? ah I love it). (Re)discovering and accepting my sexuality has been so amazing. I’ve been developing new crushes left and right, I’ve been discovering how exciting it can be to have sustained eye contact with women, I’ve been discovering so much beauty in the world. I’m feeling super optimistic about the world and life. And the one that makes me the most happy – I’m finally accepting men for who they are. I’m excited about rediscovering them as equal members of the society who I might just not be sexually attracted to. This is the one I’m most excited to write more about, and hopefully I can do that in another piece.

001 – all creative work is vulnerable

I’m stuck in a new place. I’ve 5 word-vomits sitting in my notes app, I’ve set up a WordPress website and everything, I’ve tried making one post public and hidden it again. Just five days ago I was super excited to write quickly and publish quickly, and get to ten published posts as quickly as possible. But today I feel like it’s a hard act, I’m feeling hesitant. I’m feeling hesitant about being vulnerable. Not about the writing per se, since we’ve established that we don’t need to worry about the quality, but about the content. It’s real, it’s raw.

I first saw the words “all art is vulnerable” on one of Timothy Goodman’s posts, and it resonates a lot from time to time. And while I’m not at the stage where I can call these word-vomits art (hence the title), the feeling’s still the same, of course. And since I’ve taken up this project at a time where most of my “battles” have reached their brim, of course all of my writing is going to be about all of it. At present, there’s three big rocks in my life that are not fully resolved and sometimes (often) cause me a lot of shame and pain. They’re 1/ my body dysmorphia, anxiety and occasional depression, 2/ my sexuality 3/ my relationship with my work. I’m also aware that they might never feel fully resolved and that’s okay too. But of course they’re going to show up if I talk to anyone honestly. And of course I’m going to be honest in a word-vomit, how can I not be?

So I guess I need to accept that the only way I can write, write, and write, is to accept the following few things

These three things are a big part of me
These things do cause me some shame and hence I’m a little afraid to put them out into the world
There’s things that people will think (if they read this) and opinions that they will form
There’s a big part of me that worries about what they’ll think and what opinions they’ll form
The only way out is through

Well, there it is. Maybe it’ll be easier now. A lot of amazing people have said a lot of amazing things about vulnerability. It was slightly over a year ago when I’d first seen Brené Brown’s – A Call to Courage. This was the first time someone had made me think about life from the lens of vulnerability. Nobody had ever explained the word better than she had done it, or at least – nobody had ever talked about it the way she had. And I knew then that that’s all there is to life. Vulnerability and connection. So, I know, that it’s okay that I’m feeling this, and that maybe I’ll continue to feel this all the time. Yet, it’s hard. So I’d love to think about, in a little detail, what I hope to achieve by being vulnerable with these word-vomits. Why should I publish these? In the best case scenario, what do I get? In the worst case scenario, how do I cope and continue doing it anyway – if I need to?

I do have some experience with being vulnerable on the internet, so I’ll probably consider that as well.

How have I been vulnerable in the past and how have I benefited from it?

I started posting “artsy” pictures on Instagram a few years ago. I think I’ve developed as a “photographer”. I started from super basic stuff, really really basic phone camera stuff. Got a good amount of validation from various kinds of people – people whose skills I admired, people whose tastes I admired. Unexpected, genuine compliments. Great conversations. Confidence. Development of skills. Development of taste. Stronger connections with some of these people.
Then, I started posting some music stuff a couple years ago as well. This one was actually harder since it was much more vulnerable, since I’d had negative feelings about my voice in the past. I also posted videos, which was very hard too since I’d had negative feelings about my ~aesthetic~ in the past as well. Regardless, a similar thing happened. The compliments and validation made me genuinely wonder and eventually believe that I’m not “as bad” as I’d thought I was. I ended up starting singing lessons. I got better. I started owning the fact that I like to play music / sing. I even started dreaming about composing music someday.
Lastly, I joined twitter and started posting about my body dysmorphia and anxiety. Again, terribly hard when I started. Got a ton of engagement on all of that “content”. But so much to be grateful for! I remember it being super scary when more and more IRL friends started following me. But it opened the door for amazing IRL conversations as well. I realized I like conversations. I realized I like meeting and talking to new people! (Something I’d never thought about myself before.) I met new people through Twitter – it was pretty cool.

I mean, it’s all here. It’s all good things. So let’s get to the next question.

What do I hope to achieve from this project?

For starters, it’ll probably be a good additional point for the next time I’m questioning something like this again. Instead of 3 points in the previous paragraph, I’ll have 4.
Just based on evidence, I’ll probably be a slightly better writer at some point of time if I keep doing this. Or at least, my perspective on my writing could become more holistic. I could become okay with calling it writing instead of constantly calling them word-vomits.
@visakanv mentioned this in his reasons for doing this, but yes, I’ll probably be a different person by doing this, and doing it publicly. And I’m excited to meet her!
Of course, I could make some new friends because of this, have new and/or deeper conversations. Good ol’ connection.

In the worst-case scenario, what happens, and how do I cope, and go on if I need to?

People will know of details about me that they decide they didn’t really wanna know. I suppose they wouldn’t tell me if they realize something like that. So I wouldn’t really know that they thought something like that. Even if they say something like “oh you’re being too vulnerable”.. well, what is too vulnerable? It’s me. Of course I could be judged for these parts of me, but that’s probably a small price to pay for all of those benefits I listed above. So I’m sure I’ll cope.
I mean that’s all there generally is, right? Fear of judgement. The one that I feel most vulnerable about is my sadness. I don’t know. There’s this one word-vomit that’s super raw, reading it makes me feel a lot of pain. Now, I’m not assuming that a third person will feel it just because I do. But maybe I’m scared of the feelings of pity. Nobody wants to be pitied. Well, compassion is different from pity. So maybe people will know how to be compassionate instead. Regardless, I wouldn’t know. Or I probably wouldn’t care in the grand scheme of things etc. So I guess I’ll cope? I guess we’ll see.

Okay, things make sense now. I’m not sure in what order I’ll start posting these. In the order I wrote them or in some other order. But I think I’m ready.