Introspection
Serious introspection is often depressing to me, at least mildly. But I've had some of these thoughts being rather loud in my head lately, so maybe it's time to write them down in some fashion.
A Lack of Ambition
That's one of the things that really punctuates my life when I think about it. I've not had any real purpose or goals to my life in...a long time. An argument could easily be made that I have failed to live up to my potential.
I've long been better off than my peers. I never had the perception that my family was in any way rich, but we never really seemed to want. Now, I realize that after my parents divorced and while I was living with my mom in California, things were probably tighter than I was aware of back then. And when I moved in with my dad building up to high school, my lifestyle didn't get lavish or anything. But I had money sitting in a fund for college, mostly courtesy of his father. And when further schooling was clearly not in my future, this helped me get an edge on a mortgage. I inheritted the '83 Isuzu pickup I drove for years, as well as the Fusion I drive now, so I've never had to buy a car. I keep myself from splurging too much, and I've had some lean times when I had to cut back, but I've never truly been completely tapped out. And... sometimes I wonder if that's hurt me in the long run, if having to work a little harder might have given me more drive. I don't know.
Back in grade school, I studied and tested well. I got good grades. I was even put in a "Gifted and Talented" Program for a year. There was talk of skipping me ahead a grade. Ultimately, though, I didn't really want to be made to stand out. I'm not sure I understand that fully now. I suppose there was an element of not wanting to be apart from my friends of the time, but I'm not sure that accounted for all of it. And, in retrospect, if I lost any friends, I'd have made new ones even if that always felt daunting and difficult. In high school, I took a few AP classes, but I still never embraced really embraced it.
Throughout my childhood, I was taught (by parents, school, and societal media in general) that the checkpoints of my life would be graduating high school, getting into a good college, getting a job, getting married, and having kids. I never really questioned it until I made that first milestone. Then I went off to college and... sort of floundered. I started to realize that I didn't really care about the path I was on. I didn't really want kids. Real relationships didn't seem to live up to the romantic ideal built up in my head, so marriage didn't hold much appeal. So would college and career be worthwhile? Couple that with finding that programming really didn't click for me and... well, that year was a whole mess of not living up to any potential.
And now, a couple decades later, I still don't have any real long-term goals. I have a steady job and make a living in a place that I love, but... I'm not going anywhere. There's no real advancement to be had. I still don't want to marry and have kids. I certainly don't want a management job. I'm just sort of here.
Which is where things get depressing frequently. I look around my life and see no purpose. I'm a 38-year-old who uses video games to offer some artificial goals and achievements to a life that is lacking them. I'm not really sure what else to say about that...
Personality of Obsession and Avoidance
There might be some irony there, because if I did have a goal I embraced, I could be a tenatious bugger. I do have a serious streak of obsessiveness/competitiveness within me. I just don't let it out much. Instead, knowing that it's there, I will actively avoid opportunities for letting it run wild.
So... I usually take my responsibilities very seriously, but I will avoid picking up responsibility like the plague.
In some cases, it's because it makes me miserable. I have a strong dislike, for example, for the thought of being responsible for someone else. Heck, I often chafed at hauling other people's gear to SCA events. Oh, I always tried to be nice and do the right thing, but inwardly it was always a storm of "if I can take care of myself, why can't they?" And, as much as I dislike taking on such responsibilities for others, I also hate myself for being so selfish about it. So a simple request is perfectly capable of chewing me up inside.
And in some cases, it's because I have the foresight (curse or blessing) to see how things could very well go. I have stood on the brink of a possible relationship and looked ahead... Embracing it would have been a change in lifestyle, because I would have put her above everything that was in my life at the time. And... I flat-out decided that's not what I wanted. I suppose there's always a chance I was wrong, that things wouldn't have gone that way, but I'm fairly certain of my own behavior, and everything else spun out around that.
And in a lovely combination of those two points, I'm really reluctant to help friends on little projects of theirs because I've had so much effort of my own poured into such things in the past and seen them go nowhere. So I hem and haw and avoid even agreeing to start on such a thing, because if I do, then I'll actually feel compelled to finish.
Lack of Human Faith
I get annoyed at some of the smallest things, all because they represent to me an utter lack of consideration toward others. That's a trait I despise in people.
One of my big pet peeves is people parking in my parking spaces at home. I've got two assigned to my unit, they are signified by painting on the asphalt. I would think that should be indication enough. The rules say "park only in your assigned spaces, visitors are to use 'visitor' spaces." Beyond the rules, though, someone parking in one of my spots feels like them saying "Only my convenience matters, you can go screw yourself." I seethe a bit everytime I come home to find one of my spots occupied. But I only need one, so I try not to dwell on it. Then I come home every once in a while and both are occupied. That... makes me want to start bashing in windows and having people towed. I could do the latter, though this is usually after a night shift so we're talking about trying to get a tow truck at close to midnight...
And I see it all around. People driving with their cell phones up to their ear annoys me. A little thing like a cigarette butt at the edge of a parking lot (and holy hell there are tons of those) reflects a person who was unwilling to even pick up after him/herself. Pedestrians and bicyclists crossing against the lights and holding up traffic. All these simple... little... things that I see people thoughtlessly doing every single day. Everyone feels like they know better, and they don't realize the message they're sending. Or they just plain don't care.
It feels a little silly to get so pissed about such things, to have such a dim view of people in general because of it. Yet there it is.
A Lack of Ambition
That's one of the things that really punctuates my life when I think about it. I've not had any real purpose or goals to my life in...a long time. An argument could easily be made that I have failed to live up to my potential.
I've long been better off than my peers. I never had the perception that my family was in any way rich, but we never really seemed to want. Now, I realize that after my parents divorced and while I was living with my mom in California, things were probably tighter than I was aware of back then. And when I moved in with my dad building up to high school, my lifestyle didn't get lavish or anything. But I had money sitting in a fund for college, mostly courtesy of his father. And when further schooling was clearly not in my future, this helped me get an edge on a mortgage. I inheritted the '83 Isuzu pickup I drove for years, as well as the Fusion I drive now, so I've never had to buy a car. I keep myself from splurging too much, and I've had some lean times when I had to cut back, but I've never truly been completely tapped out. And... sometimes I wonder if that's hurt me in the long run, if having to work a little harder might have given me more drive. I don't know.
Back in grade school, I studied and tested well. I got good grades. I was even put in a "Gifted and Talented" Program for a year. There was talk of skipping me ahead a grade. Ultimately, though, I didn't really want to be made to stand out. I'm not sure I understand that fully now. I suppose there was an element of not wanting to be apart from my friends of the time, but I'm not sure that accounted for all of it. And, in retrospect, if I lost any friends, I'd have made new ones even if that always felt daunting and difficult. In high school, I took a few AP classes, but I still never embraced really embraced it.
Throughout my childhood, I was taught (by parents, school, and societal media in general) that the checkpoints of my life would be graduating high school, getting into a good college, getting a job, getting married, and having kids. I never really questioned it until I made that first milestone. Then I went off to college and... sort of floundered. I started to realize that I didn't really care about the path I was on. I didn't really want kids. Real relationships didn't seem to live up to the romantic ideal built up in my head, so marriage didn't hold much appeal. So would college and career be worthwhile? Couple that with finding that programming really didn't click for me and... well, that year was a whole mess of not living up to any potential.
And now, a couple decades later, I still don't have any real long-term goals. I have a steady job and make a living in a place that I love, but... I'm not going anywhere. There's no real advancement to be had. I still don't want to marry and have kids. I certainly don't want a management job. I'm just sort of here.
Which is where things get depressing frequently. I look around my life and see no purpose. I'm a 38-year-old who uses video games to offer some artificial goals and achievements to a life that is lacking them. I'm not really sure what else to say about that...
Personality of Obsession and Avoidance
There might be some irony there, because if I did have a goal I embraced, I could be a tenatious bugger. I do have a serious streak of obsessiveness/competitiveness within me. I just don't let it out much. Instead, knowing that it's there, I will actively avoid opportunities for letting it run wild.
So... I usually take my responsibilities very seriously, but I will avoid picking up responsibility like the plague.
In some cases, it's because it makes me miserable. I have a strong dislike, for example, for the thought of being responsible for someone else. Heck, I often chafed at hauling other people's gear to SCA events. Oh, I always tried to be nice and do the right thing, but inwardly it was always a storm of "if I can take care of myself, why can't they?" And, as much as I dislike taking on such responsibilities for others, I also hate myself for being so selfish about it. So a simple request is perfectly capable of chewing me up inside.
And in some cases, it's because I have the foresight (curse or blessing) to see how things could very well go. I have stood on the brink of a possible relationship and looked ahead... Embracing it would have been a change in lifestyle, because I would have put her above everything that was in my life at the time. And... I flat-out decided that's not what I wanted. I suppose there's always a chance I was wrong, that things wouldn't have gone that way, but I'm fairly certain of my own behavior, and everything else spun out around that.
And in a lovely combination of those two points, I'm really reluctant to help friends on little projects of theirs because I've had so much effort of my own poured into such things in the past and seen them go nowhere. So I hem and haw and avoid even agreeing to start on such a thing, because if I do, then I'll actually feel compelled to finish.
Lack of Human Faith
I get annoyed at some of the smallest things, all because they represent to me an utter lack of consideration toward others. That's a trait I despise in people.
One of my big pet peeves is people parking in my parking spaces at home. I've got two assigned to my unit, they are signified by painting on the asphalt. I would think that should be indication enough. The rules say "park only in your assigned spaces, visitors are to use 'visitor' spaces." Beyond the rules, though, someone parking in one of my spots feels like them saying "Only my convenience matters, you can go screw yourself." I seethe a bit everytime I come home to find one of my spots occupied. But I only need one, so I try not to dwell on it. Then I come home every once in a while and both are occupied. That... makes me want to start bashing in windows and having people towed. I could do the latter, though this is usually after a night shift so we're talking about trying to get a tow truck at close to midnight...
And I see it all around. People driving with their cell phones up to their ear annoys me. A little thing like a cigarette butt at the edge of a parking lot (and holy hell there are tons of those) reflects a person who was unwilling to even pick up after him/herself. Pedestrians and bicyclists crossing against the lights and holding up traffic. All these simple... little... things that I see people thoughtlessly doing every single day. Everyone feels like they know better, and they don't realize the message they're sending. Or they just plain don't care.
It feels a little silly to get so pissed about such things, to have such a dim view of people in general because of it. Yet there it is.
Follow-up (and repetition) on point one, I guess... I've talked about such before, usually in relation to MMOs and such because it's easy to examine there. But it runs deeper. My thinking is very goal-oriented. "Should I do X?" is frequently followed up by "where does doing that put me, and do I find this favorable?" That alone has been enough to prevent me from pursuing a few relationships. It makes it hard to psyche myself up to go much of anywhere when I weigh longer-term cost to a possible trip against often-fleeting experiences and stuff I find I don't really care about (do you know how much I didn't do on all those convention/SCA trips?). And at the risk of making one of the least-grievous offenders overreact and take this point too personally, I have to say I often get board with meandering, aimless roleplaying. Sometimes there are exceptions, and sometimes even I find value in doing something just for the sake of doing something rather than the payoff it leads to, but mostly... I fixate on destination over journey. On the other hand, if I do take up a goal that feels remotely attainable, I can be an tenacious, obsessive bugger. Most of the time, this comes in small, simple matters like following through the story of a book or going after something specific in a game. It can also lead to hazardous solo drives through scary conditions because I refuse to let things like backing-out company and a frickin' blizzard get in the way of a drive to Disneyland. If I had applied myself to... getting rich, or making a living somewhere else... I think I could have done it. But I find I just don't really care for the most part.
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