First blog, and right on time (not a month late despite popular belief (because technically it's two months late)). Might as well start off strong. I just recovered from being sick for over a week - sick to the point of being stuck in my room and unable to concentrate, like super-gnarly-ultra sick. Not fun. Now I'm swamped with all of the work I had before I was sick, all the work I missed from when I was actually sick, and all the work I have now. Anyways - I've got plenty I want to go over without much of a focus so I apologize for the lack of structure here.

Just a note that the timeframe of writing this was, like, a month because I've been rediculously swamped the past couple of months, so do mind that any sense of chronological order will be a bit skewed and the content is a bit shorter than I'd like.

Identity

For those who don't know me (or for those who do, really), I struggle plenty with my own identity and in more ways than one. Addressing the elephant in the room, the most obvious thing I've been struggling with is gender and body identity. I've always been unhappy in my own skin and it feels like every year the distance between my mind and my body grows wider.

One of the hardest things about modern life, I think, is finding purpose and finding out who you are. Everybody dreams, and everyone has their own aspirations and ideas of who they want to become, but we have to choose which of those are worth pursuing. For some, this comes easily - but for the rest of us, we have to figure it out through the wonderful natural process called trial and error. You see that all over the place, from simple clothing choices to life-changing decisions, like life goals and college majors. It can be tough, and we so often get it wrong - but through that, it's a beautiful thing to witness. To watch and to experience the sacred relationship between "fucking around" and "finding out."

That being said, I'd like to expand a bit on my own personal identity by providing a list of goals for the next few years that I'll (hopefully) be keeping updates on my progress - somewhere on this blog. Obviously, I'd like to succeed in university - I wouldn't be going otherwise. I'd like to get to a healthy weight, something that I've already made some pretty substantial progress towards since the summer, and to strengthen my body. I want to get past scrapping game dev projects and actually get a decently sized project finished and published - and I want to, at some point, publish some piece of my writing. I think that there is plenty to work with there, at least for a good while.

Modern Sisyphus

If you haven't read about the story of Sisyphus, here's a short and shitty TL;DR: Sisyphus was a king in Greek mythology who goobed around until big Z got mad and gave him a boulder to roll up a cliff for, like, forever. Bummer.

The depressing part of the story of Sisyphus is how similar his punishment is to the modern work cycle. It doesn't matter whether that work might be from a job, from family or friends, or for school, or anything - for every thing that gets done, two more things appear in its wake; it's almost like the expectation is to keep churning through this endless work cycle or be deemed unproductive by your peers. There's little room for individuality and expression - and only a small margin of people spend their lives doing what they love.

Took the clown makeup off - no more rants about society in this section, promise. Lately I've been feeling a lot like Sisyphus. I feel like every time I get something done, I get twice as much work the next day. To make matters worse? Three quarters of it is schoolwork for a major I don't care about anymore. I've had next to no time to do what I want to do or, sometimes, need to do. I've been losing sleep and skipping meals just to get somewhat caught up. Then, I got sick. For a whole week. Not, like mildly sick where I just get a free week - I might as well have been half-dead during that period. Even still - that week might have been the nicest week I've had this year, without a single thing to worry about other than resting and taking my medicine. Except I didn't get any of my work done - I hardly could. Now I have sixteen assignments I need to finish, alongside several exams coming up that I'm a week behind in class for. I feel like I'm drowning under everything I can't keep up with, like a modern Sisyphus in a sea of Sisyphussies.

At the very least, the analogy comes with a grain of hope. Sisyphus, as an idea, is a stoic icon. The quote from Albert Camus, "One must imagine Sisyphus happy," has gotten me through so much. We can find meaning in this meaninglessness, and though we continue to push the boulder, we can make that boulder ours. I know I'm not one to talk as I'm one falling off this cliff, but if you're in situation as I am - you will get through this, you can get through this, I believe in you and I love you.

Great Expectations

I've always been considered "gifted." I used to think that the title was some grand thing that meant I'd go on to do great things in my life - and who knows? Maybe I will. But what I do know is that it would have nothing to do with being "gifted," and that the only meaning of being "gifted" is that I would grow up with much, much higher expectations.

For me, University (and my grades thereof) is my most prominent set of expecatations. I'm on a very strict scholarship that requires me to do well in my classes to keep them, and I (as aforementioned) picked a stupid difficult major that, turns out, I hate. Plus I've got both ends burning on the candle of academic expectations - Asian parents on one side and poverty on the other. I've just about had to abandon everything I enjoy just to keep up with my work and studies to a sufficient amount, not to mention the incredible amount of sleep deprivation. Did you know that it's healthier to sleep for 90 minutes, no more no less, instead of pulling a full all-nighter? Certainly makes it easier to stay up the next day.

I'd consider myself a somewhat judgemental person. I really try not to, and generally it doesn't affect the way I view people close to me - but subconsciously I judge people pretty harshly. Yet, out of everyone, I've never judged someone so hard as I judge myself. I'm not surprised by this, though - I've always kept high expectations for myself, and that bar only gets higher by the year. It started, I think, with wanting to be the best in my class as a kid - and from there spiraled all the way down to wanting to be the best fighter, the best writer, the best player; the best whatever in whatever group I found myself in. Of course, those are unreasonable expectations - but I still find myself needing to fulfill them, consciously or not - and I still beat myself up when I fail to upkeep them.

My family, as much as I love them, does not help in this realm in the slightest. Though they're a lot more subtle about it than I am, they really expect me to excel in everything I do - studies, work, physical condition, relationships - they hold me to a high standard because, for much of my life, I've gone above and beyond them. Now, though, that bar is far too high - and they don't really understand the spike in difficulty that I've had to deal with lately, so that bar stays right where it is. Then, every time I slip from that standard, they don't understand - it often feels like they don't have faith in me. There's always some thing I'm doing that's "ruining my life" or some hobby I have that "isn't important," or the worst of them all, the idea that I'm just "not putting in enough effort." That's nothing new, either - even when I've excelled in life, the moment I drop just a little is the moment that I'm suddenly not doing enough.

I'm not really sure how to end this, so, like, thanks for reading. Sorry if it sucked, not sorry if it didn't suck. I'll be writing more of these, hopefully on time next time. Have a good rest of your day?