As per usual routine, this piece is written when I'm supposed to be working on something else (with more specified deadline).
Lately, I've been deprived of meaningful connection. I snapped. I keep having terrible mood swings. Nothing is exciting anymore. Workload is all burdening, when it can be lighthearted and fun.
I printed sheets over sheets of paper. Scientific literatures to review. In printed form because my attention span is just horrible over the monitor. I installed extensions to block distracting websites. I used pomodoro timer just because. I tried being efficient. I tried immersing myself in the work. It succeeded, for a moment, before the timer stops and I produced a 9-pages paper for a task that required minimum 15 pages.
For a moment. I took a breath, and it was all just... gone? Like a thin layer of mist, huffed and dissolved into the air.
I stressed out over a week for... that? Hundreds of pages and hours of indecisive design for that? For a half-assed, half-baked (supposedly) academic writing? And when it's done, I won't even know if it's good or not?
I know I did bad. I tried promising myself I would revise. But when deadline passed, it seems like it's already a lost cause. I didn't even know if my revision would do me any good. I didn't even know if that work would do me any good.
Sometimes I don't know why I feel upset all the time when it's something that I chose for myself. Maybe because I know deep down it's not a wise decision, maybe because I didn't know it would be this hard for my brain to function, maybe it's because it's apparently not as fun as how it initially seemed, maybe I strayed too far from my earlier purpose.
Ironically, I found the answer in the brief moment of breathing after that past-deadline tension, with the underlying anxiety of another upcoming big wave.
I've been deprived of meaning.
I've been deprived of meaning because I haven't been creating something.
I looked at the pile of papers I've printed, post-it notes sticking all over the place, highlighter of various color atop (what could be) important sentences. I glanced at my manuscript, horrid incoherence over incoherence, glued together with half-baked words and last-minute pretension. I sighed. What's it all for, in the end?
I created it, but I wasn't proud of it. I spent hours and hours of sleepless nights just to make something that I don't even want to look at ever again. And I won't even know if it's correct, if it's satisfactory. It makes me mad, to know that I invested so much just for nothing.
I know, I know it's a process. It's going to be a long process. Knowledge is intangible, I realize, and in the end learning is going to produce something in the long run. Maybe I'm just too impatient to wait.
One day I asked my friend, "what do you do when you're bored / tired?" to which she promptly answered with, "work".
"But what if it's the work you're tired of?"
"Then find another work, don't just do one thing."
It sounds weird at first, but I got her point. I know there's something missing in me because I've been doing only this one work of relentlessly following class and writing papers (okay not one work but it's one string of sequential work, you get my drift). Back then, I could still be following class and writing fiction / contemplation, to which I can say that I created and liked (forget how shitty it was).
I need another work. Not work "work", but probably, something with goals and output. Not for long term, but something, anything I can look at and say "yeah I made that". But I know I've been too tired to do anything nowadays. The schedule won't even let me breathe before bombarding me with other series of tasks. I even began thinking about uploading something to instagram after quite a long time of hiatus, you know, just so I have a digital artefact of my existence without doing so much.
I know I always say that. I had plenty of side projects that I want to do, when in the end nothing gets done. But maybe all this stress will finally make my brain snap and realize that there's no better time than now.
It's kind of ironic that I always have these kinds of meta-realization when I have urgent things to do. Maybe putting in actual works always gets me thinking if it's all worth it, and if it's going to do something for me in the end.
I just hope that next time, I would be wise enough to understand what's meaningful to me before it gets too late.
