Saturday, April 12, 2014

23

Today I am 23

Thus, the song of the day is 23 by Miley Cyrus. I think last night I had a dream that I met Mike Will Made-It at McDonalds... Anyways yeah song of the day... probably a bad time to try to start a new daily blog post thing. Between exams, final assignments, and preparing to move out of the house I've lived in since January 2011... it's been pretty hectic. Plus it's finally really nice out so any free time I have I'm wasting(?) taking naps and going on walks. Things have been pretty great, honestly. Good finale to 22.

How was 22?

Crazy... way too much stuff happened. Seemed like a really long year. Felt like the pinnacle of the lifestyle I've had since I graduated high school and moved out, which was like... 5 years ago, wow. We had a really big party last weekend to celebrate the house "ending", I kept thinking "every good decision I've made in the last 5 years, and even the good parts of every bad decision I've made, have accumulated in this", it was a good feeling. At the same time, I'm ready to move on. For a long time I've had the mindset that it was better to make gradual changes, which I think I've read somewhere, but now I have the opposite mindset... like, if you change a bunch of stuff at once, doesn't that make it sorta easier, 'cause you can't have associations that reinforce the habits. Like, for example, if I wanted to give up eating candy right now, it'd be hard, because so many other aspects of my lifestyle enable me getting candy. But if my lifestyle changed so that I didn't have an opportunity to buy candy, even if those other changes weren't things I really wanted to change, I could give up candy... and even when I reintroduce those other elements, maybe I can still easily give up candy? Does that make sense? To this end I'm moving out of the house I've lived with a bunch of my friends and into my dad's house out in the country for the summer.

This is a really personal blog post

Yeah... and it's gonna get even more personal lol. Check out my:

Top 23 things I want to change while 23

23. Give up candy
I eat an ungodly amount of candy... if there was any justice in the universe, which, evidently, there isn't, my mouth would be full of cavities. I think this will be pretty easy to give up, there aren't any convenience stores out in the country, and I've found if candy isn't convenient I won't make the effort to get it.

22. Give up fast food
Basically the same deal here... again, I ought to be like 400lbs with all the McDoubles I drive into my gut.

21. Dress better
This one I'm not sure about yet... a month or so ago I got into shoes, like, something suddenly "clicked" in my mind, and now I have a bunch of opinions on shoes, what makes a good shoe, I want to save up and buy Common Projects Achilles Low White Leather Sneakers and Gucci Floral Print Black Leather Sneakers... Wait, is this even a good thing? Did I just pick up another expensive, useless hobby? Uhhh... well anyways, maybe something similar will happen with other types of clothing? Not really sure what the endgame is here. Also, I bought Versace socks.

20. Schedule things better
I always thought I was one of those people that didn't really need to schedule things I "wanted" to do, like, if I had free time, I figured I would just be able to prioritize on the fly. But unfortunately... I am really not one of those people. Actually, those people might not exist. Like, it's entirely possible to have something you want to do, and you'll be prepared and have the means to do it, and then you just... do other stuff instead. I think (and actually have been told many times) that if you just block time off for things, you're more likely to do them. It makes sense.

19. Quit procrastinating
This is a really big one obviously. Honestly I'm not sure what to do about it. My hopes are just that, by giving up other things I mention on the list, I'll just... naturally... do things earlier? I don't know...

18. Don't socialize as a "default activity"
What I mean by this is like... by living with friends, I've been really lucky in that whenever I want to hang out with someone, I can do that, almost guaranteed. Like, literally at any time. I worked it out and I don't think there's been a time this year that everyone in my house was asleep at the same time. This has been great, 'cause I love those guys, but man, I do spend a lot of time just sitting around and bullshitting and stuff. And this is more insidious than a lot of other timewasters because it never really feels like wasting time. Like, when you're dicking around online, yeah, it's really clear you're wasting time, but when you're hanging out with friends, it's just... whatever. And I mean obviously I'm not gonna give up on social interaction at all, but nowadays, when I'm hesitant to start something, and I think "well, I'll just see what Adam's up to"... I don't want to have that option. And I won't, so... yay?

17. Don't dick around online endlessly
Okay yeah this is a big one, one that I'll just as easily be able to do at my dad's... hmm... maybe I should get one of those online blocker program things... I dunno. Honestly I barely enjoy reddit at all, besides finding out info on Smash Bros and Magic. And 4chan... well, no, I still really enjoy 4chan... but probably I should enjoy it less frequently, like, that'll probably make it even more fun, really. I dunno, this one will be hard, maybe.

16. Exercise more
I didn't exercise at all this winter besides ITG lol. It was too cold to go to the gym and the gym kinda sucks anyways and running outside wasn't an option. But in the fall, before I stopped, I really had started enjoying running, outdoors or on the treadmill, so I'm really excited to get back into that. Running in the country is even nicer than running in the suburbs. I just want one of those iPod holster things... Cardio only though lol.

15. Cook food more
I think I actually enjoy cooking, and I definitely enjoy eating, but it's just like... my current living conditions make this too hard lol. Plus I have too many other options. I think losing the ability to easily go to McDonalds, or buy pre-made food, or whatever, I dunno, hopefully I'll cook more.

14. Sleep more regularly
My sleep schedule is actually usually alright but then I'll get like week-long stretches where I stop sleeping more than 3-4 hours a night, or a stretch where I sleep like >10 hours every night and take naps, or weird times where I just take 3 short sleeps a day and nothing else... I ought to have a standard bed time and waking up time. Even when it's "good" I still vary when I go to bed and when I wake up by 1-2 hours each way, which isn't good.

13. Less video games
This one is kinda weird 'cause I don't even play that many video games these days, but I dunno... like, I play ITG and Smash, right now, that's basically it. And I have the mentality with these games that eventually I'll be the best, or at least world class or something. For a long time I've bred this competitive mentality, going to tournaments, practicing, etc. But only now am I realizing the obvious truth: if I actually wanted to be world class in these games, I'd have to put in way more time than I'm actually willing to invest. But I think it's okay, like, honestly, I feel like I'm good enough at these games. I'm good enough that I could play with anyone in the world at them and (although lots of people would absolutely wreck me) everyone would realize that I've invested a lot of time and energy into them, and if those people have any sort of category of "respect" for someone on that metric, I'd earn that respect. Does that make sense? It's like, there's a sort of social bubble that surrounds your level of skill in things like this, and as long as people fall within that bubble, you can have it as a common interest and a way to connect and stuff, and I'm saying that my bubble in games like this is now big enough to encapsulate everyone... I think. It seems that way, at least. I dunno. I mean I wouldn't mind if I got better at these games, or got good at other games, and I want to keep going to tournaments (maybe not as frequently), but when I think "oh man, I gotta practice more, I gotta get better", I just really have to stop myself and ask "why?", and "is that reason really as important as other stuff you could spend your time doing?", which are just... really obvious questions in retrospect.

12. Actually have a sort of "reward" mentality
I think most people can operate in a sort of mindset where they think "if I do X that I don't want to do, I can get Y that I want, so I should do X"... this sort of thinking has been absolutely busted for me for a long time. Mainly because there's so rarely a Y that I need to do some sort of X for. The things I enjoy are so immediately accessible. I mean wow my lifestyle really is great. But yeah I think here like... a lot of stuff I take for granted now won't be as accessible, so it'll be easier to think "if I want it, I won't put forth the effort to get it unless I accomplish this other thing".

11. Restructure "relax"/"work" modes
Right now I have a sort of "productive"/"unproductive" dichotomy where the former involves figuring out what thing I absolutely have to do or what difficult thing I want to do and doing it (or, more often, sitting around procrastinating and dreading it) and the latter involves lying on my bed and watching anime. Instead I think I should have a system where the former can be basically the same thing (even including the procrastination, honestly) but the latter becomes doing something productive I want to do, that's more fun and easy, like making stepcharts or blog posts or whatever. And then lying on my bed watching anime becomes the reward for doing... anything, anything at all.

10. Write more blog posts
I really really enjoy writing blog posts. I've made almost 300 now! Wow! The blog has been running for over 5 years! Wow!! Still, I feel like it contains maybe 1% of the blog posts I want to make. Whenever I listen to music I like, I want to write a review of it. When I read manga or watch movies... I just want to write about everything. I just really want to let people know why I like something. Even if no one reads them (I know almost no one reads them) I just find it so satisfying to articulate and set down permanently the reasons I like something. It makes the experience of enjoying them way more concrete. So yeah, I just want to put even more effort into making "blog about things" a sort of default behavior.

9. Be more proactive about getting stuff published
Right now I have four short stories that I think are in "decent" shape... I mean, I dunno, it's so so hard to judge your own work, but these I feel like I couldn't really improve any more. I really really should just start spamming them to magazines and stuff. Like, what's the harm? There really is no harm. I'll get rejected, sure, probably across the board, but still, I really should do it. I took a creative writing course this term. On the last class, we focused on how to get our writing published... there was one slide our professor showed that really made the whole thing seem like... completely feasible, completely doable. It was a spreadsheet he had made. In one column was the story title. Then there was the magazine he submitted to, the date he submitted, the response he got, and the day he got the response. It made it seem so... I dunno, like, I felt like I could do that, I could fill out that spreadsheet.

8. Write more fiction
Okay this is it, this is the big one, this is the only actual one. Everything else just leads to this, by freeing up time, making myself feel more "professional", making myself more productive, giving myself more energy... this is the only one that actually matters. Writing books is still my ultimate goal in life. I really need to remind myself of that more often, and not just when I've already gone to bed and I realize that I didn't write any fiction that day and it feels like the day has now obviously become a waste. I have a lot of ideas, I have a lot of stuff I've started... I really feel like I can do it, honestly... I think I ought to have the ego to say that much, at least.

1-7. Plan blog posts better
Okay yeah I didn't actually think of 23 things beforehand. I just hoped that somehow it would work out, lol. I wrote this really quickly too 'cause I'm going out for Korean BBQ for lunch. Hopefully it makes sense but if it doesn't oh well.

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