{"id":9168,"date":"2015-04-07T15:41:26","date_gmt":"2015-04-07T15:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/visakanv.com\/1000\/?p=9168"},"modified":"2016-12-18T08:00:47","modified_gmt":"2016-12-18T08:00:47","slug":"0273-revisiting-the-central-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/visakanv.com\/1000\/0273-revisiting-the-central-problem\/","title":{"rendered":"0273 \u2013 ask yourself questions about what&#8217;s holding you back, and answer them honestly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I have been trying for years now to solve a problem (or set of problems) that I have not been able to adequately define. There a a set of questions that seem relevant to this problem.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What is keeping me from being happy, healthy, fulfilled?<\/li>\n<li>Why do I not wake up raring to go, to confront the day? (Prospect of painful, unfulfilled obligations, usually.)<\/li>\n<li>Why am I often reluctant to go to bed? (Feels like I haven\u2019t done enough, haven\u2019t done the day justice.)<\/li>\n<li>Why have I not been able to keep to a stable exercise routine? (Feels underwhelming, maybe. No external, environmental stimuli, maybe.)<\/li>\n<li>Why do I not seem to be able to keep a group of friends that I find stimulating? (For the most part, most of the friends from my childhood were inherited through proximity, propinquity, happenstance. I should CHOOSE friends, and ask them out.)<\/li>\n<li>Why do I not enjoy my work when I recognise that it is a joy and privilege?<\/li>\n<li>If I do have ADHD, why have I been unable to remedy it?<\/li>\n<li>Why do I seem to be running out of things to write?<\/li>\n<li>Why have I not modified my environments to suit me better? (I don\u2019t know for sure what exactly will be better, and so I need to experiment randomly, and I worry that the early experiments will look silly and stupid to anybody else around me. I worry about peer judgement.)<\/li>\n<li>Why am I struggling for so long with procrastination, laziness, work-aversion?<\/li>\n<li>Why do I not seem to be able to confront my fears and demons at a more regular, face-to-face level?<\/li>\n<li>If I am afraid, what am I really afraid of, exactly?<\/li>\n<li>If I\u2019m not afraid, what am I waiting for, exactly?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I know that purpose will not mystically fall out of the sky. I know that to experience flow, mastery, autonomy, purpose and all of that good stuff, I first need to struggle. I need to put in the work.<\/p>\n<p>Put in what work, into where? What am I supposed to work on?<\/p>\n<p>What is the struggle that I must undertake? [1]<\/p>\n<p>What is the central problem of my life, and how do I solve it? [2]<\/p>\n<p>One way of framing the central problem, I feel, is a lack of meaningful\/valuable output. I had some segment of this figured out at some point\u2013 thanks to Quora and the SG blogosphere and my friends who supported my writing\u2013 I figured out that my job and goal and role is writing. I\u2019m a writer, that is my vocation.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why I came up with the idea of writing 1000 vomits. I realised at some point that the sheer volume would give me what endless deliberation would never be able to\u2013 refinement of craft.<\/p>\n<p>But after 270,000+ words, I started to flounder. (Maybe I\u2019ve floundered several times in the past, but this one feels a bit more\u2026 oomphy?). It started to feel like I had written myself into a corner. I have said most of everything that I\u2019m comfortable saying to the general public, which means self-censoring the hurtful, gratuitous stuff that only damages others. That\u2019s fine by me right now, though a part of me does suspect that there\u2019s a killer story in there somewhere\u2026.<\/p>\n<p>But still, I don\u2019t feel ready to write novels and stories. [3]<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m still clueless and there is a lot of reading I must do, many movies I have to watch, albums I have to listen to.<\/p>\n<p>Well, why haven\u2019t I done all those things? There are mundane things like the fact that I don\u2019t sleep very well. I\u2019m making a half-hearted effort to change that, by writing on pen and paper before going to bed instead of going online.<\/p>\n<p>But that feels like a symptom, not the disease. What is the disease?<\/p>\n<p>It might be this\u2013 I have not yet figured out properly how I ought to allocate my resources in the long run, outside of these vomits (and even in these vomits\u2026 it feels like my decision is stated strongly but executed half-heartedly. I allow myself to let these things slip.)<\/p>\n<p>I have not decisively chosen, and so I play this rather tragic waiting game, allowing my cognitive resources to burn out slowly through a thousand cuts rather than apply myself forcefully in any direction that might fail.<\/p>\n<p>After many months (years? a lifetime?) I find myself thinking (again) that enough is enough (again). That I have suffered enough fictional pain and deaths. It\u2019s time to decide.<\/p>\n<p>What is the decision? \u201cHow should I spend my time.\u201d What is the single most important thing that I ought to be doing?<\/p>\n<p>The answer is schlep work. Glorious, laborious schlep work. I am a content labourer. Just as a regular labourer takes pleasure\u2013 is entitled to nothing else!\u2013in his labor, I have to find pleasure in creating output for work. Many many bricks of work.<\/p>\n<p>And I\u2019m not talking about my personal word vomits anymore. This is something I will continue as time goes on, and eventually it will be completed and I will learn and grow and change along the way. But this alone is not enough. It\u2019s like meeting the same friends after school or work every single day. After a while you have nothing new to say and you\u2019re just keeping each other company and trying to make each other (and yourselves, by extension) feel better. Cooperative delusion.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s what these vomits are, in a sense. I get better at writing myself into a personal delusion. That&#8217;s something I need to avoid.<\/p>\n<p>______<\/p>\n<p>[1] At least, I think to myself, I\u2019ve finally acknowledged that a struggle is necessary. That life without struggle is boring, painful, tedious, frustrating\u2026 it\u2019s purgatory. But I haven\u2019t gotten around to actually struggling.<\/p>\n<p>[2] (Is it really simply a matter of meditation, exercise? Would that alone be able to solve the problem? If so, why haven\u2019t I gotten around to it? Should I really just get into a deal with somebody who becomes my commitment buddy\u2013 would that really make a difference? If so, why haven\u2019t I gotten around to trying it?)<\/p>\n<p>[3] And Ray Bradbury didn\u2019t write Farenheit 451 until he was 30, anyway. He suggested writing short stories instead, one every week. Maybe I should do that. I\u2019m trying to do to much all at once. This is a recurring thing for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I have been trying for years now to solve a problem (or set of problems) that I have not been able to adequately define. There a a set of questions that seem relevant to this problem. What is keeping me from being happy, healthy, fulfilled? 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