I am rather depressed at the moment, the main cause is obviously Easter. One more redundant and tedious holiday. I do not care for the religious meaning, and I would rather not be under the family pressure, big cleaning and cooking for guests I am not too keen on seeing. So Easter wise: big SIGH.
But there is a sad anniversary coming my way soon (like all the other anniversaries since I was 16 I will not be celebrating this one – those who know the date are discouraged from sending wishes, for I perceive them as sarcasm) . Behold, for a decade has passed since I had become legally adult, since I have been fully responsible for all my actions. I these ten long years I have managed to achieve absolutely nothing. No kidding here.
Education :
I did not manage to get a degree, even though I tried twice on different faculties – and this is not some sad turn of events, it is my own doing, I did not have what it takes (i.e intelligence) to manage that.
Professional Career:
I have no useful skills, that would make it possible for me to have a career, I am unemployable for any white-collar position. I am pathetically bad in what I do – translating, interpreting, because my writing skills in my native tongue are worse than in English, and everyone, who reads this knows the level of my English… If I had a conscience I would never translate again.
Personal Growth:
Decline would probably be a better word. I have become much more radical, quarrelsome and short-tempered. People annoy me easily and my general misanthropy has grown. I hate a lot of people I know, despise even more people (whether I know them or not is irrelevant), there is no one I love, hardly anyone I care for, very few people I like – and that is a fluctuating emotion, because irritation with particular individuals overcomes it rather frequently. I have become even more unlikeable than I was in high school. People seem uneasy when they first meet me. That is if I speak to them. I generally do not initiate a conversation or make eye contact, so most members of the general population are spared. Well at least one thing improved, in high school I used to be clingy. Since now I am more self- aware, I know what kind of torment it must have been to the people who knew me, and why most of them decided not to keep in touch with me. Even though I was hurt by that, now I know that they made a wise choice and respect them for it.
Health:
I am more ill then I used to be, ironically, because I went to a doctor and tried to get some treatment. A mistake, obviously, but now I am in a situation I cannot avoid doctors. For the time being, hopefully. As soon as I can I plan to cease all this pointless waste of time and money. I do not recommend being ill, avoid it at all cost. Unless you have some common, easy ailment, you will not get any help from doctors. Because they will only treat you for the most common conditions and tell that you are being ridiculous saying the meds they prescribe have side effects. The odds of meds having side effects are low, they are for special people, so please do not be vain enough and bother the good doctor with your megalomaniac ramblings about feeling much worse after taking the expensive (aka helpful beyond any doubt) pills.
Writing:
I have not finished writing any of the stories that clutter my head. No harm done here, they are generic and boring, just personally important to me – not unlike imaginary friends. I would be probably better off without them, because I would have more space in my brain for useful stuff and maybe I would not had failed so miserably in the important parts of life.
Dreams/Goals:
None that I can think of. I do not know who I would like to be or what I would like to do with my life. I made many wrong choices, because I had never known the answer to neither of these two basic questions. This probably explains all the points I made above. I have never been good at anything, so no obvious path materialised and I never had any guidance. Until I failed at university my parents never took any notice of what I did with my life. Now they are just disappointed that I do not have a degree, a job and a family – and they have to keep quiet at family gatherings, no boasting for them. And this way, making a full circle, I neatly come back to Easter.
#1 by Monika on April 25, 2011 - 3:27 pm
I’ve been wondering whether I should even comment on this one, for fear of saying the wrong thing and getting you even more depressed (:-* and *hugs* btw, I’m sorry you’re feeling like that :-/ I honestly wish you were happier)
But you know, if you looked at the last 10 years of my life, it doesn’t look all that much better. It’s actually the last 3 months or so that my life has really picked up, and the last 3 months have been the product of a mindset change that has taken me about 2 years of work on myself.
As for how you’ve described your life, IMO some (not all, but some) of what you’ve written is flat out untrue. And the stuff that is true is like that because you give up too easily. I’ve seen you give up before you’ve even properly started considering something. Which is a state I know very well because I’ve done and still often do the same thing! (although I definitely have improved
)
But I’ve also truly moved forwards. So what if I’m not where I want to be yet? I’m moving my life forwards and that’s a very nice feeling, even whilst I continue to keep failing at loads of things and get annoyed with myself ;-P
Oddly enough, I recently read a blog post about this very thing – under the “Persistence” heading he writes about how people our age often don’t have the commitment to really see things through and he’s right, I think. People get discouraged by failure much too easily.
I’ve probably failed at more things these last two years than I’ve failed in the 5 or more years before them… I’ve had a gazillion failures and am still continuing to fail
Ok, that was part I of my lecturing
The rest of my lecturing will come later, as I don’t think wordpress will let me post something that long anyway…
#2 by Monika on April 25, 2011 - 8:31 pm
In terms of Education, I think you and me are in some ways quite similar – I’ve not managed my BSc degree yet either and we’re the same age! My problem is I’m quite narrow and obsessive in my interests and I find it very difficult to study for something that bores me. Academic courses tend to have a more general scope and for me that’s difficult. I’ll get good grades for the stuff that really interests me and fail grades for the stuff that doesn’t.
From what I know of you, you’re quite similar. Also, you’ve got dyslexia and were doing language degrees at one of the country’s top universities. Add to that the depression and family problems you’ve had over the course of your studies and it’s pretty obvious why you were experiencing a lot of failures there!
Your problems have nothing to do with intelligence. I’ve seen many intelligent people drop out of their degrees and many not so intelligent people complete them.
And also, I’d like to point out, that you made those decisions – the decision to take up a challenge that was always going to be difficult for you (for the reasons I mentioned) and then the decision to drop out.
As for your career, I’m not much of a judge of English-to-Polish translations, so I can’t say. But I know that as far as Polish-to-English translations go, you’re better than a lot of the translators on the market. And I think you know this too.
I get that you’re not satisfied with the quality of your work and maybe this isn’t the career that’s right for you anyway. But your language skills are something concrete, they’re more than a lot of the people on the market have.
Personal Growth – all that may be true, but are you even trying to change it?
Health – I know and I wish I could help *hugs* But don’t give up. Me and my mum have managed to improve our health quite a bit by ignoring doctors and just taking things into our own hands. I’ve no idea what will work for you, but I really think you still have lots of room to try some different things out.
And as for dreams and goals – how are you to have them when you’ve boxed yourself up like this? Any dream or goal that even enters your head will automatically be dismissed because you will see it as unrealistic and therefore not worth pursuing. People have natural talents and interests, but they don’t get good at these things if they don’t commit to them and do something about them.
If you expect something to just fall from the sky – some skill you’re good at even though you didn’t put any effort into it then it’s not going to happen. I’ve never seen that happen to anyone.
And if you genuinely don’t know even the general direction of your “path” then I can point that one out easily :] I’ve known you for over 12 years. We’ve both changed a lot in that time, but there is one thing that has always been constant about you – your love of aesthetics. You’re the most aesthetically-orientated person I have ever known. It determines you in so many ways – how you arrange things in your life, how you analyse situations and people, which films you enjoy watching, even your sexuality. There are also other things that determine your “core being” of course, but this one always struck me as something very unusual. You have an amazing aesthetic sensitivity.
Does that give a clear idea of what you should do with your life? No, of course it doesn’t. Does it automatically give you any concrete skills that you won’t have to work for? Nope. But nobody’s path is *that* clear and figuring out these things is part of life IMO.
I truly believe that you’re giving up on this part of yourself much too easily. Any time I’ve tried talking to you about it, you just say you don’t have the skills to do anything with that and it’s the end of the conversation. And then the next thing I know, you’re buying yet another book about fashion in some century or culture, or something to do with art or perhaps merely commenting on what a beautiful lamp you happened to find in some shop. You’ve got a true passion and talent for this stuff, so kick your ass and get the skills you need, dammit!
I know it ain’t easy and I know you’ve already gone in a different direction, but so what? I really do think the blog post I linked to earlier has a good point – spending 6 months or a year on something is dabbling. Whatever you decide to do needs to be a long-term commitment and you need to accept that you will have difficulties and failures. But surely something to do with your passion would be worth a commitment like that? Even if it took you years to get to a point where you could start building a proper career around your love of fashion and aesthetics, wouldn’t those years be worth it?
Anyway, those are my 2 cents… And I really do hope your mood improves once the Easter period passes *hugs*
#3 by pillowscrapbook on April 25, 2011 - 11:05 pm
I’m not saying that achieving goals is easy, every success is 10% talent 90% hard work. But there is nothing in my life that I would feel confident investing time and struggling. By saying an obvious talent I meant that for instance i was good with something particular like a skill i could develop.There is nothing I’m truly passionate about. I’m lukewarm about many things, but they change quickly. You finished film school, but you didn’t pursue it as a career, because you were discouraged, by the local reality. Yet finally you managed to find something else you are seriously passionate about, and you pursue it as a career and you made that decision what 4?5? years ago?
concentrating on pretty things. I may buy as many books as i want, but they won’t change who i am. as tylor durden said in fight club: you’re not the things you own; in my case this actually a sad thing.
you are right that i made the decision to drop out of uni twice, but i did it because i was constantly failing there, plus i was never sure i want to be there or do that. I began studying, because it was expected of me and i could get into those faculties without effort, a safe bet to avoid the problem that i have no idea what to do with myself. aesthetics is not a career, you can’t do anything with it unless you have same manual skills – like an artist, craftsmen etc. I have nothing of the sort, i know many people with better aesthetic sensitivity than my own. It may be important for me, but that just makes me a shallow person
I’m not someone worth knowing, so actually me being a misanthrope is a good thing. I am generally unlikable and generally it is considered a bad thing, but for me it is all the same right now, i think more human contact would be unbearable for me.
#4 by Monika on April 26, 2011 - 8:12 pm
The reason I didn’t pursue film as a career is because I didn’t have the guts to. I talked myself out of it way before I even started film school. I didn’t quite realize I’d done this to myself until I started thinking about it more.
We had an excellent, world-class editor as our teacher and there was just so much more to learn from her than from our directing classes. The other reason was that this fitted my idea of “craftsman” a lot better – an editor has a firm craft and skill-set. A director is a bit of everything.
I’d dreamed of directing international feature films since I was about 13 or 14. It took me most of high school to even build up the courage to decide I’d go to film school. Directing feature films felt more like a fantasy than a goal. I made the decision to go to film school because I managed to convince myself that I could be a craftsman. I didn’t believe my dream of directing big feature films could come true, but I figured I could get a job in TV and be a good craftsman. My dad had worked in both Polish and British TV, so this seemed like a realistic goal for me.
Once in film school (and it was a pretty easy, two year course with no degree – nothing too ambitious, I didn’t believe I could do something very ambitious like the renowned school in Łódź), I chickened out some more. We were supposed to choose a specialization on the 2nd year. Originally, I’d intended to do directing (that’s what I put down on the entry questionnaire before first term), but I changed this to editing. There were two sides to the decision. One side was actually quite reasonable and it’s why I’m glad I did it
After I finished film school, I didn’t quite know what to do with myself, so I just sort of waited for something to happen. Eventually, a sort of trainee thing in Polish TV materialized. I went and hated it… not because I didn’t like the film-making process – I love that. But because they were butchering the craft. Most people there just didn’t care about it the way I did.
And so, at that point I dropped it. I realized the career of “film craftsman” would make me unhappy because I wouldn’t always have the benefit of working with people who cared. And I just cared too much…
I never made a stab at the real dream, however. Not even once. The real dream – being a feature film director would mean having some choice about the people I’d be working with. And international feature films are where lots of the quality people land up – I’ve seen them at it and it’s a whole different atmosphere.
I still don’t have the guts to pursue this though. The one difference between me now and then is that I’ve decided I’m not going to do any more fooling myself. I know what it is I dream of, it’s just that I don’t have the confidence to go for it yet (or the skills for that matter ;-P). Admitting this to myself was a very important thing for me.
It was about 2 years ago when I decided I had to stop fooling myself. Since then I’ve been trying to start addressing all kinds of hang-ups and problems I have. It’s been slow progress, but it’s been steady. I think that once I get through my major hang-ups and insecurities, I’ll be in a much better position to go for the big dream.
And ever since I started doing this, I’ve been much much happier
Initially, my progress was not particularly obvious to anybody but me – I worked primarily on what was inside of me. Up until the beginning of this year, my weight and health was the only success that was visible on the outside (although it also improved how I felt on the inside tremendously!). But recently, there are a little more results to show. And I think eventually my progress will become a bit faster. The happier I feel and the more confidence I have, the more power I seem to have to make things happen. And hopefully, one day I’ll get to the point that I feel I can pursue filmmaking as a career… the way I want it, without stupid compromises *grin* It’s going to be years before I do, though. But that’s ok – I just don’t want to keep fooling myself and give up before I even give it a real try.
And that’s the real story of my “film career”. The way you see it from the outside is just completely inaccurate IMO, so there ;-P
Again a very long comment, so I’ll break it off here for the time being…. But I haven’t even started on my “IT career”
#5 by pillowscrapbook on April 26, 2011 - 9:13 pm
OK, I see that I had a very narrow view of what was going on, but I remember you telling me only two things about your film career before: the reasons, why you chose editing over directing in school, and that your experiance in the Polish television was a very disappointing one. So without knowing any other reasons I assumed these were the only ones.
But at least you had a goal to talk yourself out of, and to which you can now slowly, step by step go back. I’m rooting for you :*.