achievements – untitled atm

105 – unblocking

If you write (or create any sort of content, for that matter), you are constantly on the lookout for material. Sometimes it’s fun because it happens automatically, but at times it’s quite draining too. Yes, people have talked about this before— how the reflex of “documenting a moment” can really kill the moment itself. Especially with writing, a lot of the advice points to this— document as much as you can, make as many notes as you can, because for sure memory is going to fail you. But I’ve found this to be consistently true in my days lately… I do feel like I’m stealing myself away from the present moment if I’m constantly trying to document it. How does one balance this? I’d like to figure that out.

Anyway, came here to note this thought down (how meta of me), but might just do a word-vomit instead. Y and I have been cat-sitting for a friend (it’s two cats!) which we were very excited about initially but it turned out be quite a.. lot. The mother cat (Mimo) isn’t spayed and in heat which was a lot for her to handle (and for us too). She seemed like she was under a lot of stress— yowling for hours at end, constantly wanting to go out, hissing at her daughter (Bailey) a lot, and wanting a lot of attention from us too. Even though we absolutely loved giving her the attention she needed, we’re two people who get overstimulated very easily so it was all a bit too much for us to handle. We’re transferring ownership to a friend of the owner’s tomorrow, so looking forward to some relief and quiet. The cats are adorable though, I know I’m going to miss them too.

It was a nice distraction from the “tasks” of life, of course.. and I did learn that maybe I can’t have cats in the future like I always thought I would. This is disappointing of course, but this is also not final since of course a spayed (or neutered cat) would be easier to handle, I know that. Definitely don’t think I can do kids though, that’s confirmed.

I was reading this first post that I ever wrote on this blog, because I feel like I’m stuck in a similar situation again. It’s interesting to see just how much I had to write! Like so many thoughts and feelings. I don’t feel that way anymore. Sometimes I sit in front of the laptop or the journal and nothing comes out of me. And I know deep down that it’s not because I don’t have stuff to talk about, it’s just because I’ve become a bit avoidant with some of my feelings. This was never an issue for me, avoidance is a relatively new issue, to be very honest. Which is probably why I haven’t taken it very seriously either. Acknowledging that I’m somewhat avoidant about certain things also means that I have to face that I used to judge other “avoidants” in the past. I know most of it is not in our control, avoidance/anxiety about “problems” are just copes, and different people cope differently. And to be fair, “avoidance” is a bit easier to manage than anxiety is.. I think I just liked not feeling super anxious all the time.

But I know.. I know, to write, or do anything, to move at all, I do have to face whatever it is that’s going on.

One happy thing before I talk about what I think my current open problems are in life: in the post (the first post), I talk about “dreaming about composing music”! I’d never realised I used to dream about it. Like I’d never acknowledged this dream properly enough to myself! But I’ve successfully composed a few songs, so the dream has been realised.. pretty proud of this! There’s a lesson here— we need to fully acknowledge and voice our dreams to ourselves, otherwise when they come true we won’t even know that we have something worth celebrating!

Anyway, now to the question of what are the main areas I want to be working towards over the next.. <undecided time-frame>:

Work stuff, what I want to do for work, job search etc
Geography.. I have no idea how I will tackle this but I do want to
Gender stuff— even though this isn’t as urgent as it was maybe even a few months ago, I know it doesn’t feel fully resolved.. and I know it’s okay for it to take the time it needs, but I don’t want to “not engage” and let the time pass. The “time it needs” will be much longer if I keep running away from the issue.
Health, too

So, yep, that’s it for now.

My key takeaways (mostly for myself but also for you in case they’re relevant)?—

Foster multiple types of cats (and kittens) before adopting and committing for the long haul.
Balancing documentation with presence is important.
Voice your dreams! There’ll be more to celebrate if (/when) they come true.
Compartmentalisation is okay, avoidance is not.

Cheers, folks xx

030b – creative queues and time management

I finally had a gin and tonic the other day. They charged us a fortune for it. We found a table outside and talked for an hour. There were heaters above us so the air didn’t feel as chilly as it generally does. The time was perfect, most of the evening crowd had gone home, but it wasn’t dead either. The city’s quite beautiful at night. The moon was out, it was a little foggy (as it often is), there’s enough voices to keep you grounded but not so many that you get overwhelmed.

I got back home and realized I can’t do something like that every night. I mean, I wouldn’t want to. Part of the magic just lies in the novelty of it. I need to be okay with the routine and the day-to-day as well. I want to be able to enjoy that. I can’t always keep looking for something exciting, new, wild (??) to do.

I got a haircut the next day so that was fun. I’d let my hair grow out for more than eight months now so that’s been crazy. Today wasn’t great though. I ended up sleeping in the whole day, missed all the sunlight – and the week’s kicking off tomorrow so I’m a little worried about how it’s going to go.

I’ve been worried about all the things that have been brewing in my head and taking up space. So much so I’ve ended up procrastinating on this post as well. Now that I’m finally in it though, it seems fine – it’s not as much material as I thought it’d be. (As usual, I guess?)

I don’t think I’m excited about being in tech. Even though it’s one of the biggest “things” in the world and I’m sure I’ll have a ton of fomo whenever I “switch” fields (if I end up doing it, that is), yet I think I want to accept that it doesn’t excite me enough. I just genuinely really want to be successful at a creative job.

But there’s the hard part, right? I can’t guarantee the success.

I’ve been debating about what the next “phase” of my life is going to be. Where do I want to be next, where do I want to go next? Summer’s about to be over soon and I’m going to have to start taking some decisions, eventually. The uncertainty’s eventually going to get to me.

Time management’s been a little hard. I think I’ve been all over the place. Between my social goals, creative goals, travel goals, relationship (??) goals and my job and chores – I feel like I can’t get everything done. I’m also aware that this is a common problem and that it’s okay, but I wonder if there’s a way to prioritize or set some boundaries or constraints at the start of a week to have some guidelines to follow as you execute? That sounds like a decent idea. I’m going to give that a shot this week.

Welp, I hit 500 words exactly. So I think that’s a wrap. Time to celebrate – I’m finally done with the 30k milestone! Hope you all have a good week ahead.

027 – find the why of whatever you’re doing

The other day I was talking about goals with a couple of friends. I mentioned how I’ve started this project where I’m hoping to write a 100,000 words. Both of them reacted with surprise about how that sounds like a lot. And I explained a bit about how it’s just 100 posts that’s a 1000 words long, and then I immediately shifted to how “it’s probably a wish, not a goal”. I’m wondering whether there’s something worth examining here. I know that in the past I’ve had problems with being ambitious in public, and I generally prefer to err on the side of underselling myself. I know where all that comes from, but I wonder if it’s worth continuing. Did I need to change the terminology of this project from a goal to a wish? Did it have any consequences?

I’ve been writing less since the last couple of weeks and part of me thinks this might have affected my motivation. Though I think most probably there’s other factors that might have affected it and this might be *completely* unrelated.. I still feel like it might have had at least like a 10% role to play. Almost like not-owning up to the goal in that moment made me subconsciously relax from it.

I stumbled across a post of Visa’s where he examines his reasons for doing this, and it made me realize it’s worth doing that from time to time. It’s like when you’re questioning your love for something you try to remember why you started, and why (if at all) you want to keep going.

Earlier (way back in my first post), I’d listed these few reasons for wanting to do this:

To “fight off” vulnerability
Developing as a “writer”
Developing as a person / growth
Potentially meet people + have more / more interesting conversations

I think I’ve successfully handled vulnerability now (this is huge for me, btw)! I don’t feel this urge to backspace words or delete posts, I rarely feel hesitancy before publishing. I think I still feel some hesitancy while sharing specific posts with individual people (especially people I know IRL), but overall, in terms of publishing on the blog itself, I’m in a good place.

I’m pretty sure I’ve developed as a writer too. I scoff less every time I use the term. I’m okay with calling myself an “aspiring writer” and letting it exist on the home-page of this blog as well. I’ve become much better at talking about this in real life conversations as well. I’ve already talked about this in some of my previous posts, but words flow easier now too. I don’t second-guess my sentences much, unless I’m trying to do creative-writing. Which brings me to another gain. I didn’t think I would actually end up writing creatively at all when I’d started this – but I’ve found that I’m able to (even if not too much), and I’ve also found it to be quite satisfying and inspiring.

Definitely developed as a person. My weeks are better when I’m writing enough, it’s showing up in my mood and my therapy sessions too. I feel like I’m able to process difficult things without always having to wait for my appointments. Realized that I can feel empty, if I want to. I don’t always have to feel overwhelmed with thoughts. Realizing that I don’t always need to share thoughts and feelings with people, pretty much writing about them is good enough as well. Since I was testing whether there’re limits to introspection, I think I might have found my answer for that as well. (It’s most likely a yes, as discussed here.)

I haven’t had a lot of the last one, but I haven’t felt the need for it either. I did initially try to share some of posts with specific people to initiate conversations about certain topics, but turns out it didn’t go the way I wanted. I think once you’re sort of done with writing about something, it’s hard to care about it again. This is weird and I’m not sure if that should be the case, honestly.

And then one other unintended gain I’ve gotten is that I’ve gotten quite decent at titles. Earlier the titles would end up being very straightforward summarizers (which is fine too), but I think I’ve gotten much better at making them a bit more catchy.

Looks like I’ve met most of what I wanted to achieve from this, so it makes sense my motivation might not be as high as it was when I’d started. Time to redefine goals and OKRs then?

Creative writing – Do more creative writing (not sure what this will look like but I must investigate)
Research – Delve into the dark cloud of research – why I don’t like it, why it’s scary, what does a well-researched piece of writing look like, what’s the line between being inspired by existing work and “generating” new work almost entirely by existing work?
Sharing – Think about sharing work – why I should do it – how I can do it better?

I think I should be able to come up with some more goals (these don’t seem enough) but it’s funny how this looks like a classic case of “I want to do something, so I’ll find reasons to do it”. I wonder if we often function like that? How many “needs” in the world are “created” needs?

Okay I think I’ll wrap this up with a third unintended gain I’ve had. I realized I’m definitely able to enjoy this (writing) purely by itself too, not just when I’m using it as an escape. Quite happy about that, nothing else to say here!