2012-11-28

And She Babbles

Time for some introspection, don't you think?

In general, I cannot complain about my life - objectively there isn't much to be unhappy about. However, I've recently noticed that when crawling to bed after spending one full day without experiencing any level of misery strikes me as an exclusive treat. Of course everyone has good days and bad days and just plain dull days, but when the distinctly more negative ones outnumber the positive ones, it would seem appropriate to at least be able to name a reason for that. Can I do that?

First of all, I am able to distinguish three separate causes of stress and anxiety, two of which I do not wish to discuss here, for however much I tell myself - and you - that this blog is a personal and unrestricted medium for me to vent and sort out my thougths, it still is a public domain, and some things need to be handled in real life before bulleting them all over the Internet. The stressful thing that I can talk about is - waaait for it - university! Being the perfectionist that I am, with a rather shaky self-confidence on top, I get anxious about everything that I'm evaluated for. I don't study for good grades, although that is what my efforts usually lead to. I really, honestly want to learn and produce amazing things. I want to be my best, and I want that to be the best. Creative industry is harsh and competitive, and in order to ever make a living out there, you need to stand out. I know my weaknesses that could become obstacles, I constantly criticize myself for not being like this or that person in this or that situation. At the same time I know that trying to be someone else, pretending, being dishonest is not going to help me to be creative and original. Hence, I'm constantly trying to balance between who I am and who I think I should be. Fortunately I have a few absolutely brilliant tutors who, by believing in me, make me a little more confident about what I'm doing. So, even though I can get myself quite tangled with this issue, I also have people to help me out of it.

How about those other things then? All I can say, is that they are people-related, which is exactly why I'm going to leave the details out of this. One of them seems to sit in me tighter than I would have expected - and I never expected it to go away swiftly, the other is more temporary sort of an issue. Both are unpleasant.

Bringing the aforementioned problems on a more general level, we could just sum up that I feel quite lonely and detached. As long as I'm doing something, preoccupied with something I'm content, even happy, often excited. When I stop, I'm not sure who I am, and whether there's a place for me somewhere. I enjoy researching, experimenting, planning, realising and discussing things related to art and photography world. Outside university I'm often melancholic and withdrawn. I don't feel like belonging to anywhere, with anyone. I do love working with photography and just doing my thing, but I don't feel particularly attached to anyone in my course - there is but one individual whom I can think of as an actual friend amongst those 43 people, but even with her I'm not completely myself. Precisely that, not being able to be myself around practically anyone here, is tiring beyond words. I haven't got to know anyone well enough to fully trust them, and hence I'm constantly holding back and saying less than half of what I want to say.
Trusting people doesn't obviously mean that I am incessantly babbling about my insecurities and anxieties to them; like being able to drop my defences and just be me doesn't mean that I'm expressing the full scale of my emotions all the time. It's just this experience of certainty and security around someone, knowing that whether you wanted to say all the things on your mind at once, or nothing at all and just be quiet, they would be okay with it. Knowing that they wouldn't deliberately try to switch the topic if you wanted to talk about something, knowing that even if they said something seemingly insensitive it wouldn't be to hurt or disregard you, and in exchange you could be honest with them without being afraid that something you blurted out was taken as an insult. I never anticipated to be faced with the amount of backstabbing, speaking ill of others and other forms of immature behaviour at university that I am. Sometimes people just make want to vomit.
The worst thing is how effortlessly you start doing it yourself following the example of others.

Even without the social Darwinism I'm not too successful in social life these days. Like I said, I feel lonely and detached. Now, if not before, I truly know how it is to be completely alone even when surrounded by people. There might be nothing wrong with the people or the moment, and yet you are shouting in ridiculously unmatching frequencies, and no matter how much you try or they try, you simply can't hear each other. I sound so melodramatic again, but in truth, this is more of a matter of regret than one of agony. Sometimes things are the way they are, and cannot be helped. Have I suddenly grown up and learnt something about acceptance? In this occasion: perhaps, in others: not so much.
Most likely, at the heart of it, this is not even about learning anything but prioritising: you can only fight one battle at a time (unless you have a time-turner, that is).
Whatever that means. Go figure.


With the amount of trust issues I'm carrying, there is exactly zero amount of people I can totally let go with and just talk to without reservations. I mean, there are few enough of those in the world, and none of them presently at a hearing distance - basically it goes like so: if there's the slightest doubt that you might not trust me, then I don't trust you. So, I'm left with writing stuff down. But writing takes more effort than babbling so mostly I just bottle everything up till I explode, which, it must be confessed, is happening more and more frequently now. Once, I believed that it's always a good thing to talk to someone when something is bothering me, especially if there is a someone who's directly involved with said bother. In fact, I still strongly support mature communication, I just don't practice it myself. Why would I attempt at solving my problems by confronting them when I can pretend they don't exist? This is escapism taken too far and I know it, and it will come stabbing me in the face one day and I know that too.

I think there was something else I wanted to cover as well but on the other hand, this post is plenty enough as it is. Also, I'm tired - and apparently I've spent two hours trying to scribble this down already. Definitely a great time to stop.

1 comment: