An Existential Crisis that Won't Go Away Part 1: Creative Anesthetic

These blog posts fall into three main catagories

1. Random life shit
2. Something I care about
3. Creativity/Productivity and all of the bundles of anxiety and joy that they entail

So, strap in because we've got another number three being served up, right at YER FEKKIN' FACE.

hey

Lately, as the people close to me will confirm, I've been barreling through a series of existential crises. This is not an abnormal state for me to be in; I am pretty much a walking existential crisis. What is abnormal is that I've been really dragged through the muck by them in a way I haven't felt in about a year.

Actually, let's talk about that for a second:

Last summer, in between college and making the move to LA, I was stuck in an absolutely horrible malaise that went on for weeks. I talked with Jinny about it, but that's pretty much it. I was bedridden with a lack of motivation, blew an entire week playing Overwatch (no really, the ENTIRE WEEK every waking moment was spent playing that game; I think the only time I did anything even remotely similar was when Skyrim came out) and generally, I was a mopey little mopeface moping around the furniture of my mopedom.

I don't have depression, or at least, I've never been diagnosed with it. I'm hesitant to self diagnose, given that I know people who have it, go through it, and talk about it and wow does that sound way worse.

But - I think I am prone to depressive episodes. Infrequently, but they occur.

I got out of that funk last summer by wallowing for a while, getting frustrated with my wallowing, shouting "FUCK IT" super loudly and jumping to work on my first novel. I made a point that I wouldn't plan it out, I would just go for it. Tippy-tappy-type away and just see what happens. A few months later I wound up with 250 pages about Elvish slaves and invisible copulating demons.

Yay?

So; let's talk about the current funk, part of which is going to spill over into next week.

Normally, these things don't last that long, so by the time I decide to make them a topic, then get around to writing about it, I'm basically out of the mood and can reflect with more critical distance.

This... these feelings have been lingering.

There are two big halves to this current crises, the first one being one I'm going to call "Creative Anesthetic." That's a bit of jargon there, but it encompasses a lot of things.

"Creative Anasthetic" encapsulates:

• Lack of motivation
• Lack of purpose
• Lack of ideas/no idea seems good enough
• Anxiety about not being productive enough
• Lack of interest in my projects
• Major questioning about what the hell I'm doing with my life

Some of these form an awful vicious circle. A lack of interest leads to a lack of motivation which leads to anxiety which leads to lack of interest as a defense mechanism.

So. Yeah. Crative Anasthetic. Knocks you on your ass just like the real thing.

Things are a bit better now. I'm getting things done and making plans and getting carried away by ideas again. But I still feel it in my veins every day. I've said that being dissatisfied is a great way to improve your life and your work, but there's fine line where too much dissatisfaction can be really damaging.

It's like a dull vibration in my veins that wants me to go back to sleep and do nothing ever again or maybe at most watch let's plays for hours on end so I don't think about the things I keep wanting to think about.

I'm tired. I'm exhausted (two different things). My inner compass has the dial snapped off and I don't know which way North is.

I don't know what I want to do with my life. And I feel like I'm running out of time to make decisions. Hopping from idea to idea isn't working anymore; I need to focus up, really dig in to only a couple of things for a while. What I should focus on, I don't know.

I don't know. The not knowing is eating me up.

I don't believe that passion is necessary to produce good art or good work. I think it's overrated.

But goddamn, I am so jealous of people who have passions, who seem to be made for one thing, who can get really obsessed with an idea/image/medium/genre/world/etc and it drives them like a car battery for the soul. Nothing I do feels like that.

What I do have, at the very least, is patience (sometimes) and discipline. Here's hoping that goes far.

...tune in next week for part 2.

yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayy