Lost! Lost in a sea of brain barf!
Right. Time to say something again.
It's funny to catch a glimpse of yourself now and then. You mull over the concept of your own identity and how you fit in with the scheme of things.
I've had a strange couple of months where my moods have been swinging wildly between contentment and despair. I think I may have reached an odd boundary stage in my life where I feel like things should have fallen into place and started making sense... but they haven't. I don't know what I was expecting. Perhaps a sudden rush of enlightenment entwined with a warm glow of achievement, bound by universal harmony and a realisation of my true purpose on this planet.
But, no. No such luck.
And no surprise, really. I mean, what have I actually done to make anything like that happen? All my life I've just been studying manuals and following their instructions, chasing the dangling carrot with a weary sense of befuddlement, wondering where I'm being led or if I'll even like it when I get there.
These days I'm feeling wildly divorced from everything and everybody. I feel like I should have tried harder with everything. But I'm not sure why. Or what it was I was supposed to achieve. What about what I wanted to achieve? Did I ever really want anything at all? Who the fuck am I? Do I like that jacket? Is this album any good? What's my opinion?
I'm really not sure. And it's driving me spare.
Also, I feel I should say sorry to everyone I know for the general lack of social grace and charm. The truth is that I'm a terribly shy and lonely person. I feel like I must make very bad first impressions. If I've ever given off a vibe of hostility or arrogance to anyone then I'm really sorry. I've never truly disliked anybody in my whole life. I just lack the confidence to contribute properly to social interaction. I really would love to engage everyone I meet with a charming smile and a rivetting conversation. But I meet people and mumble, shuffle my feet and avoid eye contact. My mind goes blank and I pray silently for them to throw forward a nugget of information on which perhaps a meaningful discourse can be established and perpetuated. My goal right now is learning to make that first step in interaction before I become far too old and mentally solidified for the behaviour to ever change.
I'm getting a lot better at it these days but I can see why I feel like I hardly know most of the people I know. People who know me reasonably well are probably aware of some of these things and so know what to expect. I'm perhaps thought of by some as a bit of an oddball but an ultimately harmless person who is very aware of the fact that he's somewhat foolish at the best of times and does his best to combat this with varied success. People who know me less well may form all sorts of opinions about me. People might think I'm very confident and strong or that I know what I want. They might think I dislike them because I failed to have anything to say to them because I met them in a period of crippling shyness.
I think I might actually be depressed. Everything feels like it's so much effort. Just getting out of bed is torture. It might just be the lack of daylight and the onset of SADS as a result. But I still get this horrible feeling at the back of my mind that I'm really not trying hard enough. I wonder if I'll ever figure out what I want and actually get on with it, rather than venting these immensely self-indulgent blog posts.
I feel like the world is in on some big secret. Like everyone else understands the point implicitly and is perfectly happy to get on with their lives with unquestioned confidence. No doubt this is a complete fabrication by my befuddled self but it's still a terrible thing to feel so ultimately lost and hopeless.
Why do I do this to myself? Why do I dwell on these things? Why don't I just get on with everything and stop fussing? Why do I feel the urge to tell everyone how I'm feeling? I suppose I just want to feel noticed and connected. Perhaps even loved. I feel like my whole life I've been getting up the courage to jump into the pool but I've spent so long building up expectation that it might not actually ever happen. These invisible boundaries of neurosis coccoon me in suffocating safety. And all I can do is comment on the way I feel, or even on the way I comment on the way I feel.
Just some feeble observer upon the passing of my own life. Waiting for a moment to pass comment. I'm David Attenborough and my life is a meerkat burrow.
Ok. I think I've run out of miserable things to say. I promise my next blog post will focus on things outside of my head and thus be more interesting to people who aren't me. Treat this post as some sort of attempt at self medication. Or use it to draw parallels with your own life. Or feel sorry for me. Or feel anything or nothing. I don't mind.
Perhaps you read this post word for word and were gripped by it. Or maybe you skim read it because you figured you've heard half this shit before anyway. That's cool because you probably have! I skimmed half of it when I proof read it. I think I might have changed my mind about a lot of it. Most of it's just paranoia being set free onto the Internet to be eaten up by hungry web crawlers and cached forever in some dark forgotten corner of Google's server city.
But please do comment if you have something to say about any of it. In fact, it doesn't even need to relate to anything I've said. Just say hello and tell me about your day. Share something with me about what you've been up to or how you've been feeling. Don't be shy :-)
Right. Bed.
P.S. I made this the other day. You might like it. Click the link and find out!
[ Entry posted at: Thu 10 Jan 2008 22:31:49 UTC | 13 comment(s)... | Cat: Rant ]
Tobeon writes:
I have been feeling quite lost recently too trying to hold onto the hope that when the summer come, uni has finished and I hopefully have a shiny degree in my hands life will fall into place. Somehow I will suddenly know what I want to do and can get on with real life.
Sadly I am sure that won't be the case, at the moment I have no idea what type of job I want to go for after uni let alone what I want as my "career" yet somehow the thought finally getting into real life after 18 years or so of education is what's keeping going.
[ Thu 10 Jan 2008 23:26:12 UTC ]
Tobeon writes:
PS
That owl is great! ^_^
[ Thu 10 Jan 2008 23:27:07 UTC ]
Dave writes:
You're not alone, Sean; we all go through these dark and seemingly troubled times. However, try not to fret because the paranoid and self-conscious feelings will pass, and you'll realise things aren't so bad after all.
In all the time I've known you, you've never come across as cripplingly shy or a boring person to talk to - quite the opposite in fact. You're a great guy :)
[ Fri 11 Jan 2008 11:55:03 UTC ]
Nick writes:
Sean you definitely aren't on your own in feeling like you do. I myself get like it roughly around this time of year (but thankfully haven't been feeling so down this year as I normally do).
I heard on an ITN news blurb this morning in fact that some expert reckons that 40% of us suffer with depression or unhappiness in January because there is such an anti-climax from the hussle and bussle, and stress of Christmas and New Year. I tried to find a link, but I couldn't, so sorry about that, you'll just have to take my word for it.
Over Christmas I did get to thinking about why I feel like I feel. I think it's partly to do with the fact you feel completely disconnected from everyone - even people who you thought you were close to. I've found myself close to different people, but after being away from them from some months you finally meet up again, and there is so much different that that one person you were looking forward to seeing is not the same as you once remembered. At Christmas I think it's especially hard to be disconnected from someone you used to be very close to - be it a friend, a sibling, a parent or a lover, and at a time of year when there is supposed to be so much love floating around, there generally seems like there's never any coming your way. Christmas is definitely a hard time to be alone.
And the January blues don't help that. They're generally wet and miserable which somehow matches the way you feel.
Don't worry though Sean, it won't stay like this, I am sure of it. It never does. Someone will come along who you will connect with, maybe someone you might not even have thought you could!
[ Fri 11 Jan 2008 12:56:36 UTC ]
Bash writes:
You're not alone, and as self-medication goes, excessive blogging is infinitely preferable to excessive boozing/drugging/misc. self-destructive behaviour. ;-)
I think it's really brave of you to write so candidly about your inner landscape. There are loads of people who feel exactly as you do and never feel able to express it. So in some sense, you're luckier and better off than they are.
As for knowing the answers... well, I'm going through something very similar to what you describe, so I really sympathise. I watched A Room With A View again last night, and was reminded of this, which I find very comforting: "At the side of the everlasting 'why', there is a 'yes' - and a 'yes' and a 'yes'!" :-)
[ Fri 11 Jan 2008 16:11:18 UTC ]
Pete writes:
Mmm, brain barf. *gronf gronf*
I'm pretty much the same as you, except you're more honest and open about yourself. As a kid I was easily provoked and kept getting into trouble for taking the bait, so I consciously stopped reacting. I ended up conditioning myself to cover up strong emotions. Which is really not a healthy thing to do. You get depressed because you can't connect to other people, and they don't see that there's anything wrong because you carry on as if there isn't.
Another thing about the depression. It can certainly be triggered by loneliness. I was quite severely depressed during the second half of my year abroad. By June, apart from Graham's new year party I'd not seen any of my Swansea friends for a whole year, and I knew quite a few of them would have gone away by the time I got back. Not good times. (The solution to that is of course to make new friends, but it doesn't help much when you know they'll also be gone very soon. Coupled with my lack of friends back home in the Portsmouth area I was very much feeling uprooted then.)
I also have the same problem with conversations. I'm not completely useless socially - if I find a conversation interesting I will join in. But I rarely start them. I also feel like I hardly know anyone, probably because it rarely occurs to me to ask personal questions. Maybe it's a symptom of a more general problem of just letting life happen to me, rather than making it happen. I'm just too lazy, too passive.
One last comment. I'm really impressed that you've never really disliked anybody. I make it a matter of principle not to actually hate people, but I have come across people who are just so incredibly annoying that the best I can do is avoid them.
[ Fri 11 Jan 2008 20:59:19 UTC ]
Aeternus writes:
Yeah, I have to agree with the general sentiment. I think everyone (or at least a lot of people) gets a bit like this, this time of year. Whether it's the weather/season, the disappointment after xmas/new years etc or what, I don't know, although I have to admit I think, for me, I felt much better in the summer than the lead up to Christmas etc. I just seem to have more energy in the summer and in winter I want to hibernate.
I can relate to the wondering whether you know people. You can often have a lot of people who are your friends but sometimes you wonder how much you know about them, and just randomly asking questions about their lives/feelings/pasts doesn't always seem appropriate/in the spirit of the moment, even in those situations where you end up with nothing to talk about, despite the fact you might be interested in what they have to say.
I have to agree with Dave though, you've always seemed very sociable/approachable to me, although I guess people have a different vision, than that others perceive.
Anyways, I hope you start to feel better :) I'm sure something will happen to cheer you up and take your mind off things.
[ Fri 11 Jan 2008 21:41:05 UTC ]
Andy writes:
What they said, plus "I hope a potential future employer doesn't read your blog" :)
[ Sat 12 Jan 2008 12:57:01 UTC ]
Frosty writes:
Firstly, I don't think you need to apologise for anything. You've always come across to me as pretty outgoing, friendly, polite, and genial. :-) You're one of the few people I find it easy to strike up a proper conversation with %u2013 and I find you to be a great and interesting conversationalist.
However, I know exactly what you mean about feeling like you can't start a conversation. I'm generally ok with people I know (although, I would like to be better), but with strangers I'm awful. I just never know what to say, and feel pretty uncomfortable. I don't entirely know why this is %u2013 I like to think I'm a fairly confident person, what with talking in front of big groups of people a fair bit, and previously doing drama, and that kind of thing. I guess my main issue is small talk (hah! I'm such a geek - I just wrote it as 'Smalltalk' :D). I find it difficult, which partly stems from the fact I don't see much use in it. It's mainly there to grease the cogs of conversation, but my mind doesn't like it much because I don't learn much from it. Or, something like that. I like my conversations to have meaning, or convey information, or sometimes just have fun. I don't like conversation just for the sake of conversation, which might be some of the problem. </confused>
We're not all in on a big secret, either :-)
Or at least, if we are, no-one's told me! I think what you're feeling are things lots of people feel. And I think the lack of daylight does play a big factor (at least for me). I find it hard to get out of bed some days, and hard to get motivated. And I've noticed that I always, *always* feel better on a sunny day, with blue sky. I'm so tempted to emigrate ;-)
I'm starting to make more of an effort to get outside %u2013 that usually helps perk me up, too (and it's good for you!). If it's sunny, I now try to get out in it, at least for a bit. Yesterday I went for a jog in it along the seafront.
I feel I haven't said half of the comforting, inspirational things I planned to say here. The internet is full of articles about how to increase your energy, how to get up and going in the morning, and the like. Check it out, it's a pretty neat place (things include drinking more water, doing more exercise, doing more creative things - like writing this blog entry!) However, there are two links I wanted to leave you with. These are things I read last week, and I found really inspiring, and life-affirming :-)
Thing the first: http://theocacao.com/document.page/541 (shortish blog entry on 'following your bliss')
Thing the second: http://youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA (Steve Jobs' commencement speech at Standford University. Great stuff!)
Enjoy! And: don't panic! :-)
[ Fri 18 Jan 2008 13:44:19 UTC ]
Jo writes:
I always thought the rest of the world was in on some big secret too, when obviously-rubbish people with no degree, no career, no money, a a circumference approaching morbidly obese and not much to look forward to seemed perfectly happy. I used to think it was because these people didn't think much, and people who do degrees and the like spend a lot of time thinking and questioning things, in much the same way as you've done above. Now I just think it's that some people expect more than others.
Still, if you knew where you were going and what you were doing, wouldn't the rest of your life seem boring when you got there? Not knowing where you're going is a great position to be in - it means you have more options than a lot of other people.
[ Sun 20 Jan 2008 13:49:04 UTC ]
dhilton writes:
The post-uni world is a shock to the system to say the least. A feeling of a lack of direction is normal, trust me.
If I had any advice on the world "what am I doing?" question, I'd say this: find something you love and find a way to do it everyday. The world is full of unsolved problems, stupid systems and people to help.
I starkly remember a TPL lecture, where Tucker walked in 10 minutes late, drinking a coffee and starting talking about CD-ROM's data structures and then mid lecture stopped and told us all that we had to strive to build systems that freed people rather than sought to control them. He gave a great example of a car park attendant who all day would put numbers into a hand-held device, checking how long the cars had been parked for. What was the point, he said in that little box? Was it there to actually record the numbers or to make sure the man was actually checking them?
On the wetware side of things - don't worry to much. People worth talking to are easier to talk to I always find :)
[ Mon 28 Jan 2008 01:37:38 UTC ]
glitterjunkie writes:
For some reason I didn't read this until today: sorry, I should've commented sooner.
Right. You are a lovely person. There is no big secret, it's just naturally occuring paranoia. Everyone has it.
Oddly, although I don't know you too well, I've had some great conversations with you in the past, and I know you read my blog occassionally, so it's almost as if I know you better than I should. And I know that last time I saw you you couldn't look me in the eye, but it's ok, it's not like I took it personally or thought any less of you. I still think you're great. And so do a lot of people.
I also think you've had a lot of courage to come back to Swansea and work, and to be so honest on your blog. Self-sensorship is rife, and I struggle with it, especially when it comes to talking about my family.
On my course here in Cardiff, they make us go up to people and vox pop them. That's scary, but out of all the people I've spoken to, only one of them was rude. That helped me feel better about strangers. You could say it's ok for me, I'm an outgoing person. I guess I can be. But most people are shy in some way, and you'd be suprised how shy a whole group of computer scientists in one room can make a mere journo feel!
Anyhow, sometimes I go home and I pour pints for my regulars. Most of them have done little but earn enough money to bring up a family. Some people would say that was a mere existance, worthless in the face of bigger miracles. But it's not true. Whatever you do is worthy.
And seriously: you have time on your side. You just came out of uni. It's ok to spend some time working out what next, and at least you're being constructive in the meantime!
*hugs*
[ Fri 01 Feb 2008 12:34:28 UTC ]
Em writes:
Hey babe hope u don't mind but in the boredom of this rainy day I happened to come across this blog which i couldn't help but read word for word.
Wasn't sure whether to leave a comment but seens as it moved me so much ... I couldn't not.
As your lovely friends have commented above everyone has these feelings from time to time - the struggles of daily life, the need to belong and of course to be loved.
I know that you wrote this blog a while before you even knew me but I think your truly amazing. You ooze with charisma and have charmed me n my friends within ten seconds of meeting us. You have a smile that could melt anything with a pulse ... Rob is living proof of that Mr Smouldering.
Anyways, just thougt i'd let you know that I think you are truly amazing and I have been enlightened in many ways reading your blog.
Mwah xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[ Mon 01 Sep 2008 14:06:01 UTC ]