Tag: journeys

073 – in repair (rambles)

 I’ve mostly recovered from the anxiety and panik by now. Back to my apartment and got to hang out with friends today evening. Also had therapy earlier in the morning which of course helped. 

I’d been feeling a lot of apathy towards my body over the last 2-3 days (post panik), because obviously it was a little too scary to get int touch with the potentially scary feelings. 

I’ve started relying on playing music almost as much as I used to rely on writing, so that’s a nice place to get to. I really think you make the best art when you need to. When you don’t have a choice except to make art. Obviously, it’s difficult to get to places like that and you don’t always want to be going there, maybe there’s a way to approach this a bit proactively. If I write and play everyday, maybe I won’t have to reach rock bottom at all. I don’t know, let’s see. 

Anyone who’s been following this blog for a while knows that I believe that combating shame around feelings is the most important thing to do when “coping” with said feelings. So I must admit that a large part of my panic was triggered by some gender incongruence— ie stemming from traditionally feminine roles— ie in this case: the thought of wearing dresses. I’ve never really liked wearing dresses that much (except very selectively) and looks like it’s become a non-negotiable for me now. I also don’t like super feminine makeup and I’m not going to force it on myself anymore. (There’s things I like and that’s all I like, period.) 

I’ve also been thinking about why society asks to keep our insecurities to ourselves. This has always been a pretty big question for me and I’ve always voiced this out, regardless of whether I’m going through tough phases or smooth phases. I know that the generic answer is “well because people won’t know how to respond to them and negative feelings can make other people uncomfortable”.. and while yes, there is maybe some appropriateness to keep in mind, I think this advice hurts a lot more than it helps. Some of my deepest connections have formed after sharing troubles. I mean, why ignore one of the only sure things in life? Human existence is painful. Why deny this? I don’t know.  

Also, I read something about how love is won through disciplined surrender.

Maybe people focus on the disciplined part of it too much and not the surrender part of it. Who knows. I guess everyone has their own versions of what this looks like. Which is fine, I guess. 

Anyway. Anxiety threatens to take over again right now so I must continue to write. I get the feeling that something is deeply wrong though I can’t quite put a finger on it. 

Alright, I did some rationalising and took a stoic-thinking-route (which I must keep private to my journals for now) and I’m feeling a little better. Yes, I do acknowledge that maybe I’m not ready to share all my worst fears yet but suffice to say that that they centre around fitting out and the troubles that come with non-conformity.

Feeling like I wanted to go on an art and music journey but I might have to go on a gender exploration journey instead. This somewhat stifled part of me has been throwing tantrums lately. Or I guess everything can happen parallely as well. 

Feeling a great need for breaks and recovery after doing mildly stressful things. Like a lesson with a slightly strict drums instructor. Sitting in a cafe now, trying out blueberry bubble tea for the first time. Let’s see how it ends up being. There’s Peach Pit playing here which makes me incredibly happy actually. Can’t find the right seating. Man, that’s like literally the only problem when it comes to working out of cafes. The right table ergonomics, the right amount of people, the right music, the right weather (I hate loud fans or super cold air conditioners). I know how this sounds, I know I probably sound very picky.. but I guess I am. But going home just doesn’t feel nice enough at the moment. Maybe I’ll just reply to texts etc instead. 

I’m trying to keep caffeine consumption to lower limits to hopefully reduce the anxiety.  

Some loud enthu kids just came and sat very close to where I’m sitting and now I don’t feel like I’ll be able to concentrate. This is what happened last time as well. Maybe I’ll just update my todo lists etc as well. Okay I did this and I feel sufficiently okay but I do need to go home and manage some of my lists again. I wonder if I need more organisations and/or planning wrt the things that I need to get done. Not sure about this. 

During the day I was of course attempting to affirm myself by telling myself “it’s enough”. Ie whatever I’m doing is enough and whatever pace I’m doing things at is also enough. But I guess hearing these kids talk about scheduling, batching, task management has currently triggered me as well. 

I guess part of everything is also realising that if I do want to prioritise creative projects that are highly personal, it is going to be a little lonely. And of course I am pretty decent at working on projects by myself, it’s still hard to feel like you’re doing life alone, in some ways. 

I guess this was a pretty rambly piece. My apologies, dear readers. I’m working on a couple long-form pieces to bring to you as well, hopefully soon. 

071 – find ways to get over yourself

I realised why I haven’t been feeling the same amount of satisfaction on my music account lately (as I used to earlier). It’s not about the validation or the lack thereof. It’s about the fact that I’ve been holding off, a bit. I enjoy the freedom I have on this blog, I really do. 

But I think because more “known” people follow my music account, sometimes I tend to hold back. I should accept that my style is verbose. I’ve been trying to “play” a part. I wanted to appear a certain way. But I think I’m happiest when I’m posting as much as I want and in the ways that I want. That’s always going to be the primary purpose. Even when I have secondary and tertiary purposes (ie connection, more engagement, good “quality” work etc) the primary purpose is still sharing your art AND YOURSELF in the ways that YOU WANT. This is my account and it’s only tracking my journey. 

Being verbose actually helps me a lot. It helps me free my mind of the clutter. I also have really fresh learnings from yesterday about how new ideas sometimes only come to me when I make space in my brain from them. This actually literally means thought-dumping in all the various ways I need. Yesterday, it looked like finishing a song (even though I didn’t end up happy with the “final” result— more on this another time), making a couple of covers, journaling a few times, going over some of my older stuff and taking it a bit forward (even when I couldn’t reach too far), and then going out and sharing some of my thoughts on all this with a couple friends too. (Luckily there were people around me who like talking about stuff like this.) 

I think about my first really great software engineering internship experience. I had a superb mentor. He was great at most of the things I needed help with— code reviews, technical advice, prioritisation stuff, debugging— all the jazz. But do you know what he was excellent at? Teaching me how to get the fuck over myself. He didn’t phrase at this way. He was gentler about it, and I’m glad. One of the questions that I would ask him on a recurring basis was, “Oh should I just ask other people for help directly or should I spend time by myself on the thing before that?” As an intern or a new grad, some of us tend to be very afraid of bothering people. We tend to be afraid of looking stupid. And yes, there’s a balance to be struck with all this, I’m not saying you want to be the person who’s walking up to one person 20 times in a day. But here’s the thing: You want to get over yourself because the work that you’re doing is more important than you. If you zoom out, everyone you’re sharing the space with has a common purpose, and you have to trust that everyone around you will remember that as well. (I’m going to write more about this in a more structured way).

But the point is, my social media accounts are currently PRIMARILY there to serve me. If they can serve me, I can get better. If I can get better, I can perhaps come up with and share more ideas with the world. Maybe there are people who are naturally able to directly serve others. But for me, serving myself is the only way I’m able to serve others. 

So, I’m going to do this. I’m going to post more on my music account in the ways that I want to. Not hold back, because I don’t want to follow a template. I want to be my verbose, journey-loving, process-loving self on there. Whatever people think about that, I’ll leave that up to them. 

Because if I really had to be succinct about my goals on my music journey (and really all creative journeys) at the moment, they’re just: 

  • Making a lot of things 
  • Understanding myself better 

— 

Anyway, that’s that. I’m a little hungover from going out (and drinking a lot) last night so that’s going to be it on all that. I’ve been feeling a few unpleasant feelings since I woke up today so maybe I’ll just share those and get rid of them. 

  • I don’t like this feeling that comes when you’re hungover. I don’t want it. So I’m going to make it a point to stop at 2-3 drinks OR if I really do cross my limits, I really need to make sure to hydrate before I go to sleep. Definitely don’t want to be doing the early 20s kind of drinking anymore. 

  • I also get triggered when I see too many couples doing couple things and I want to find a better cope for this. 

  • I got a rejection from a portal for online tutoring that I’d applied to. It’s only a small bummer by itself but it opens up a bigger question. Obviously, part of me wanted this perhaps a bit “easily”. If I want to apply to a few places (or a few times) then I really need to decide whether this is the thing that makes the most sense for me to “try properly”. [for part-time paid work]

  • There’s a friendship I’m lowkey struggling with. We’ve been sufficiently close friends since college and this is perhaps one of those friendships where I feel close and intimate enough with the person to share a variety of stuff and we have a good amount of fun together and yet there’s something missing. Maybe I just want more quality time. Or more attention. I don’t know what it is exactly, and this is quite interesting. I gotta come back to this.