Post Type: short excerpt, list
If my audience does not wish to read my brain vomit, scroll down to the bottom for the list on writing out your imagination, do productive things, and improve your sense of self.
Dear blog. Almost all my past writings have been "short excerpts", and in short, they are not short.
I have not stopped hating myself. But having been in stagnation for sometime in my depressive state of mind, I'm slowly tempering with my mind to gain some control back.
Due to my out of control thoughts and imagination that parallels and often overtakes reality, I have been unable to focus for a large part of my life. When I was younger, my level of maturity is lower than my peers and my parents were oblivious to mental developments, so no one had given me guidance to control my natural mental complexity. Recently, after several deep reflection sessions, I've decided to try to face and embrace my outrageously imaginative mind, instead of cowarding away and hating myself, trying to desperately control its existence.
This involved me "degenerating", in a way, to my old passion for imagining stories, writing, and drawing. I have "quit" anime-like story imagining and drawing for several years, when I became self-aware and started having identify-confusion, self-hatred, and insecurity issues because my often daydreamed expectation does not level with reality. i.e. I'm always falling short of my own expectations, and cannot be happy and proud of myself to live in the moment.
It was always as if there's a ball of fire, or some mixed, strong, oozing substance that is longing in my chest that cannot be spilled. I could not find a deep satisfaction and exhaustion in almost anything.
Here's where my new tactic, explicitly writing down excerpts of my imagination into stories has helped.
I am lazy and have no longevity. There is no doubt about it. Except I can be intensely focused on something at hand that I am extremely passionate about, that I will ignore anything and everything surrounding me.
And through the last 10 years, the only passion that have always lasted and resided beside me is my wandering imagination for writing stories. But because I was lazy and have no perseverance, no stories of mine turned into fruition, because when I'm not at an inspired moment, I would not think of other parts of the story that did not result in my mental happiness and satisfaction.
But starting recently (the last 2 months or so), I've taken to embrace my story writing, and I write down any passage that comes to mind that I feel passionate about at the immediate moment.
From doing that, I can see the resulting change in my mental happiness. For example, short moments ago, I would be in a deep infinite loop of personality confusion and moral struggle. But as soon as I think of an imaginative story of a possible event that could take place that makes me happy, my state of mind starts to think of the utopian world I've imagined as reality, and thus results in a higher happiness level. This has always been a cure for me before (in fact I lived in my imaginative utopian storied world for a good amount of my life), but I have never taken the initiative to explicitly express them through word. Mostly because I was lazy. So these temporary happiness later turned into anguish and I was angry that I have such a "good story" but they have not turned to materialistic things (for the world to see).
I hate myself so much for my laziness and lack of obstacle-overcoming drive. Plus, I am able to do things, and only things, that I'm passionate about. I have pushed myself, once in a while, to write things down, and go through them in an organized, story-telling way, even editing them as if they are my literary creation at a later time.
As the good folk rule goes, if one is kept busy, they have no time for depression. I find that to be quite true.
So now instead of being ashamed of my imaginations and daydreams and thinking of them as off task, which often leads to struggling with myself to get back on task and change, which in turn causes me to waste more time and not do anything (biting finger nail for 8 hours a day, for example), I've come to embrace and face the fact that I am someone who has very little self-control and organization, and that I must do something I have passion for.
This way, I'm not just having a whirlwind of thoughts circling in my
head and just thinking and not doing. Despite it is off task from what I
should be doing, at least I am doing something - and the thought of
that makes me happy.
This has helped in my deteriorating mental health (mostly as a result of my own self-hatred of my habits and moral questioning). For when I am writing, I am fully absorbed in my utopian imaginative world (and I'm proud to be absorbed this way), and I feel the satisfaction of having finally overcome my laziness and lack of self-control and focus - even though they maybe temporary and fleeting.
By embracing what I truly am and what I can do, instead of hating them, I have come to hate less of myself, and other people. I suppose that is always a healthy sign.
Here's the list of steps (both mental and physical) that I do to improve my state of mind:
1. Often times, especially recently, due to various life uncertainties, my mind spirals into a bottomless hole of depression. I think many people have experienced this at some point in their life.
2. I used to imagine things that inspire me, such as encounters with people I'm secretly obsessed with, or funny things, or turning my current moral question into a story with characters I created. They make me happy temporarily, but because they are just thoughts, there's no "production", their value soon dwindles.
3. Now I still do number 2. But instead of just thinking, I write any excerpt possible down. In a word document, google docs, text editor.
4. I actively try to improve my literary ability, pretending I am writing a published work (I might publish one day, I'll never know :P ), and use that to organize my imagination together into legible stories.
5. As a result of the writing process, there are 2 outcomes: 1. I've used my time to make something tangible - so I'm not as guilty; 2. My thoughts are being collected and organized, and pushing myself to improve literacy is a form of overcoming struggle - a quality I am trying to inculcate in myself.
6. I go back and edit them, if I feel like it, as if they really are legitimate stories. I know a lot of people don't like reading their own mind barf as they feel ashamed or guilty at looking at their own mental image. (It's like you think you are incredibly appearance-wise unappealing, and you keep pushing yourself to look yourself in the mirror) Sometimes this frustrates me, but if I let the frustration run for a while, after a while I will be calm.
7. The argument is, if I am unable to make tangible work (which needs not just initiative, but also perseverance), even on things that I have passion for, then I am truly a failure of life who is a guilty human being, a product of laziness.
8. Process number 2 will always happen naturally. I push myself to do number 3. Number 6&7 I do to overcome things that I hate about myself.
9. When my imagination is no longer trapped and let out in this way, I feel better about myself and the fireball in my chest becomes smaller.
10. It all comes down to embracing your own identity. People in our generation often have mental instability issues due to stress related insecurity (reality falling short of expectation, too much/too little choices, unable to let-go). When that happens, STOP THINKING & DO SOMETHING IMMEDIATELY. Tell yourself enough number of times that you are great the way you are, and that you are happy, then you will be sufficiently happy.
11. Less thinking, more doing. Deflate your ego & be truly humble - just do, and don't expect much.
P.S. When I get some writing stuff together eventually I will "publish" them on the internet :)
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