Or maybe that’s not the question.
I’ve seen it when people are engrossed in something. When they take whatever time they have to engage with it. So maybe the question is how do I find a hobby? Though logically you’d need to love something for it to be your hobby?
Say; I watch a ton of anime and I really like to watch anime. At what point is it a love for it then? When I pick up the brush myself? So sure, I’ll do and try. And shortly after I stop and give up.
I kind of assume I love my family. But thinking of whether I’d cry if they were gone I draw blank. If they ask something of me I should be glad to do it? I get to spend time with them? That should have me engaged in that time if I love them? But then I’m not.
So is the question then how do I stop being lazy and put in effort? That’s probably the better question. So if I don’t want to do that, I don’t want to love something then? How do I push through then? Or would that be forcing myself into it and I end up hating what I wanted to love? Or is it just hate toward me for failing again and not following though because it’s hard?
So is the question then how to do hard things? I want to move out, I’ve worked up enough savings to attend uni overseas away from the oppressive dread that the US has become. I want to maybe take up a comp sci degree. I want to make a game that’s been kicking around in my head forever now. But that’s all I do. Want things. I come home tired, just cook, eat, watch or play something and go back to work in the morning. Dodged the question the second time. Nothing done again.
I can’t leave or that’s another excuse. My family relies on me being around. Helping with everything modern day related including online accounts, navigation and English. I’m the only one with a job. The bills are on me. An excuse? Or do I care about them? Their hopes and dreams are on me. Continue the bloodline or whatever.
No I clearly don’t care, going so far to legally change my name completely. Futile rebellion? No, laziness again. Avoid conversation to explain why your name is the way it is. Fit in. Conform. Then what of my dreams? Where do excuses end? When will the self pity end? Shouldn’t I just live? What is it to live? Better post it online for an ego surf later. Surely that will fix everything. Just make it someone else’s problem like always. Some people can be nice like that, why don’t I use that kindness.
Makes me sick. What twisted creature does that. Was the question all along ‘What am I?’. Delusional, obviously. Talk to your friends that you obviously have and didn’t squander playing videogames instead of making connections with people in college that your family broke their backs for to make you money for. That you didn’t cut ties with after moving countries. They may be dead in the war for all you know. You should have never left. Maybe even made your sorry existence worth something in fighting for a cause. But you don’t care. All you ever do is nothing. It’s just so easy to do nothing, isn’t it.
Was the question how do I embrace a hollow selfish shell of a person standing atop a castle built of arrogance, desolate lands as far as the eye wanders. Or how to destroy it; let it fall and shatter its hate into pieces, nature to take its course and reclaim the barren lands. What was it? The question I seek the answer to?
Drama queen that guy. Don’t mind him. Just go out and make friends. Right! Oh wait it’s America and you have to get into a car to get anywhere. Screw it, bike then. Where I’ll just be sweaty and tired by the time I get anywhere. Oh woe is you. Fine, you got friendly with your co-workers at least. Great I get to play video games with them if our schedules match. And so we’re comfortable right!? After making all of those excuses right!?
But still empty. A good job, a house, money. None of it is yours. Your family worked hard to get here where you stand. A lazy ball of anger and hate. You’ve no right to complain. You’d toss it all away wouldn’t you? Then do it. How do I stop this pain? How do I end it?
It doesn’t. All of me knows that at least.
Then you can’t live. So then to live is to experience pain. Pain of failure. Pain of goodbyes. Pain of endless empty monologues. Pain of explaining what you feel. Pain of empty platitudes. Pain of contradiction. Pain of seeking comfort in self loathing. Pain of guilt from pity.
Without the pain, pleasure loses meaning. With only pain, pleasure is mute. That’s all I ever attained by doing nothing as the pain never leaves. Meaninglessness and pointlessness. A hollow muted nothingness.
Was the question then how do I accept pain and move beyond it to attain pleasure? Was there ever a question? Where did it all begin?
Why yes. With a question I now ask again; How do I learn to love something?
The answer was ever present. The question never mattered. You now know as much.
But it’s too late. The deed done: the prose over; The due paid; With time we both lost to the kaleidoscope of self indulgent me’s.
I’m sorry. You are not sorry. Keep the change. You are welcome. Goodbye.
Ok, so riding this stream of consciousness was wild and what I’m fishing out of it is that you’re suffering from burnout and probably depression.
You’re the only one working, your family is relying on you for money, your primary social interaction is with them or coworkers, it all sounds like you’re unfulfilled. That’s even echoed in your opening with a want for hobbies. That’s a ton of pressure to internalize and that leads to feeling like you have to put that much effort into everything.
I know you don’t wanna hear it, but you gotta get a therapist. I clawed my way out of a similar hole all on my own and didn’t get a therapist until after. That would’ve been game changing at the time. Second to that, first thing the therapist is going to suggest is making time for you. If the video games and anime aren’t doing it for you, replace that with something else. If they are doing it for you but you feel guilty because you aren’t using that time to do something productive, fuck that noise. You’re a hairless ape carefully evolved to eat berries in a cave and climb trees, not a 3d printer, not a computer. Humans are biologically incompatible with a 100% productive mindset.
Take it slow and broaden your day to day. Personally, I’d suggest writing, this post alone has more raw skill and emotion than most poets I’ve met. If you want, hit me up and we can chat on Discord.
Lastly, what’s your diet like? When I was this fried I basically just ate garbage and it turns out a diet of pasta and Dr. Pepper can chemically wreck your drive to do anything. I a big thing for me was learning to cook.
There’s a lot going on in your OP, so I can’t address all of it, but to echo the other replies, I can see that you feel unsatisfied with there you are right now, and that therapy is going to be the best place to work through it long term.
People are creatures of habit, reacting to stimuli. You might see others reacting to their hobbies with more contentment, or feeling more love toward their family, and wish you had those same reactions. You can’t control what signals your body gives you, but you can control how you react to them. If you’ve decided that behaving in a certain way is important to you, act it out, even if it feels unnatural. Over time, that behavior can become a habit, and the feelings will become more genuine.
I do. I think I do. I’ve tried a good bunch. Guitar, piano, drawing. I want them to culminate in that pipe dream of a game. I have half a dozen barely started things I ‘deer in headlights’ stare at in my free time or rummage through them in my head in a zone out daydream. Only to just end up killing time getting through my game and anime backlog. Get excited, start, give up and do the easy thing. Rinse and repeat.
I eat quite alright. Your concern is appreciated. That’s the thing that’s stuck with me since moving to US. We don’t eat out 99% of the time. I’ve lost a good bit of weight too since two years ago once I took over the meal planning from my dad. Much like games and anime I get to turn off while cooking. Just a chemistry set with concrete inputs and outputs. Instant feedback on if it sucked too '_
Appreciate the invite. A different time, should the universe have our paths cross again under different stars. My brain won’t see the offer for anything but a pity and eat away at me more. I write something similar every year for a few years now. Decided to post this on a whim. Or maybe it was that this year is so dreadfully unbearable. I’ve rationalized things every which way I could imagine. Each perspective, a prism shard; contorting a reflection to the point where I don’t know which image is me. Here I go waxing poetic again. A melancholic stupor having me for an actual writer. The gall of some people these days.
As for a therapist. An old class mate from America I check in with from time to time told me how soul crushing of an experience it was for her to find a good one. I don’t know if I fear vocalizing what I wrote more than being chewed through a system designed to extract money out of me with naught to show for it. Or it’s the laziness talking again. If there are ways to find a good one near me, I’ll try. Appreciate any info.
Lastly, and as already stated, thanks for reading; this as well. I’ve debated replying to anything from this. But it’s the least courtesy for your time.
DM me your whereabouts, I’m actually part of the mental health field and I’m willing to bet there’s a ccbhc type place in your area. That’s the best option for finding a good therapist as they’re grant funded so it cuts out a big portion of the for profit attitude. Outside of that, my suggestion would be to break down your hobby goals. When you’re feeling like this, goals are gonna feel wholly unachievable, I managed it with goals like “paint one part” or “tune the banjo” you finish that step and feel like doing more? Go ahead. You finish that step and you’re sick of it? You’ve already reached a goal, go watch some anime.
Those baby steps feel like a waste of time, but at the end of a month you’ll look back and realize you’ve made it way further than you did trying to brute force it through your original goal.