Everything
May. 18th, 2009 11:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pasitheaI have a really hard time defining what I am. The world is just so darned interesting and there's so much to do that it's really hard to select an identity and stick with it.
I guess I'm a software engineer. I spend more time doing that per week than anything else, and it was definitely my passion for a large part of my life and is in part my passion now, but I get enough of it at work, I guess. I'm largely satisfied. Not entirely, but largely.
Art, animation, music. These are definitely strong passions too, though I guess 'art' is pretty vague. Drawing, painting, digital art production, making sculpture. That'd be a more apt description.
Sewing... It's funny. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed sewing and weaving and those sorts of skills. There's something very nice about making 'functional art'. Stuff that's unique and interesting but also serves as something I can wear as personal expression. I'm very pleased to see how quick my sewing skills are returning now that I've been doing it more regularly again.
Plants are another strong bit, I guess. I love plants and gardening. There's nothing quite so joyous as watching things grow.
I'd like to both read and write more, study additional languages, and a million other things.
The two problems are time and money, I guess. Money is necessary. If for no other reason than because I need a place to keep my sewing machine, my sketchpads, my computer, etc. I'm a little bothered by this materialism. My house is full of 'stuff' but the majority of my stuff tends to be active stuff. Or it should be, were I not time-slicing so much that some of it gets far less frequent use. There's also a lot of raw materials for pending projects and scraps from previous projects that have no purpose but are too useful to discard out of hand. I suppose one thing I could do here is declare a moratorium on new projects until I've eliminated all the things that are waiting in the wings. Then perhaps, continue it until I've made use of some percentage of the scraps. I bet I could fill a couple months that way.
Bringing me to the other problem: Time... There's not enough of it for all the things I want to do, and certain types of skills rapidly stagnate if not given some regular attention, and some kinds of tasks take a very long time. I don't know how to handle this. My standard solution is to go without sleep and skip 'play' time because I enjoy the things I'm working on.
Lately, I've been feeling a bit of internal conflict about this. I'm proud of being a jack of all trades but the 'master of none' part is weighing on me. I feel like society expects us to be a master of something because that's the only way we can make enough money to survive. I'm not well-suited for a massive-scale competitive society. I'm very good at a LOT of things. In a village or tribal community, I would be invaluable, but in our super-star society, I'm barely treading water.
I dunno. Some days my lack of long-term focus bothers me. Funny though. Most of my major passions all tie together. Programming, animation, writing, art, music. All of it fits together in this childhood picture I had of making game and virtual world experiences. I guess the problem is, once again, time. Learning the skills to do it all myself is pretty unwieldy. It would be better to work with others.
So... People. Perhaps more than time or money, that's my real problem. People. I realized recently that most of the time I see people as a threat. Even at the best of times, I largely see people as an inconvenience. Something to be navigated around. When I was younger, I almost always pulled most of the load. In my family, my dad worked all the time and wasn't really around much. My brother was very sick most of the time and couldn't work and my mother, I'll spare you my vitriol. When I was with other kids, it seemed like we'd get excited about ideas and so I'd suggest we break up the work and each of us do our parts and then.. Time passed, I did my part, and they'd gotten bored and abandoned the project, leaving me to finish it alone or be forced to abandon it myself. That's been a recurring theme for me. The only person you can ever trust to get anything done is yourself. Eventually, I guess, that means I stopped trying to work with others. Besides. I enjoy making stuff so... Their loss.
But still... It leaves me worrying sometimes. Where will I end up?
I guess I'm a software engineer. I spend more time doing that per week than anything else, and it was definitely my passion for a large part of my life and is in part my passion now, but I get enough of it at work, I guess. I'm largely satisfied. Not entirely, but largely.
Art, animation, music. These are definitely strong passions too, though I guess 'art' is pretty vague. Drawing, painting, digital art production, making sculpture. That'd be a more apt description.
Sewing... It's funny. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed sewing and weaving and those sorts of skills. There's something very nice about making 'functional art'. Stuff that's unique and interesting but also serves as something I can wear as personal expression. I'm very pleased to see how quick my sewing skills are returning now that I've been doing it more regularly again.
Plants are another strong bit, I guess. I love plants and gardening. There's nothing quite so joyous as watching things grow.
I'd like to both read and write more, study additional languages, and a million other things.
The two problems are time and money, I guess. Money is necessary. If for no other reason than because I need a place to keep my sewing machine, my sketchpads, my computer, etc. I'm a little bothered by this materialism. My house is full of 'stuff' but the majority of my stuff tends to be active stuff. Or it should be, were I not time-slicing so much that some of it gets far less frequent use. There's also a lot of raw materials for pending projects and scraps from previous projects that have no purpose but are too useful to discard out of hand. I suppose one thing I could do here is declare a moratorium on new projects until I've eliminated all the things that are waiting in the wings. Then perhaps, continue it until I've made use of some percentage of the scraps. I bet I could fill a couple months that way.
Bringing me to the other problem: Time... There's not enough of it for all the things I want to do, and certain types of skills rapidly stagnate if not given some regular attention, and some kinds of tasks take a very long time. I don't know how to handle this. My standard solution is to go without sleep and skip 'play' time because I enjoy the things I'm working on.
Lately, I've been feeling a bit of internal conflict about this. I'm proud of being a jack of all trades but the 'master of none' part is weighing on me. I feel like society expects us to be a master of something because that's the only way we can make enough money to survive. I'm not well-suited for a massive-scale competitive society. I'm very good at a LOT of things. In a village or tribal community, I would be invaluable, but in our super-star society, I'm barely treading water.
I dunno. Some days my lack of long-term focus bothers me. Funny though. Most of my major passions all tie together. Programming, animation, writing, art, music. All of it fits together in this childhood picture I had of making game and virtual world experiences. I guess the problem is, once again, time. Learning the skills to do it all myself is pretty unwieldy. It would be better to work with others.
So... People. Perhaps more than time or money, that's my real problem. People. I realized recently that most of the time I see people as a threat. Even at the best of times, I largely see people as an inconvenience. Something to be navigated around. When I was younger, I almost always pulled most of the load. In my family, my dad worked all the time and wasn't really around much. My brother was very sick most of the time and couldn't work and my mother, I'll spare you my vitriol. When I was with other kids, it seemed like we'd get excited about ideas and so I'd suggest we break up the work and each of us do our parts and then.. Time passed, I did my part, and they'd gotten bored and abandoned the project, leaving me to finish it alone or be forced to abandon it myself. That's been a recurring theme for me. The only person you can ever trust to get anything done is yourself. Eventually, I guess, that means I stopped trying to work with others. Besides. I enjoy making stuff so... Their loss.
But still... It leaves me worrying sometimes. Where will I end up?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-18 07:22 pm (UTC)You may eventually find an approach in life that productively combines two or more of your passions into one new scope.
I give this website as an example:
http://www.we-make-money-not-art.com/
...sociology, science, advertising, agriculture -- all in art.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-18 07:44 pm (UTC)At lunch I was contemplating what one the surface is probably a related problem. The realization that there are types of artwork I can do (most notably, sewing) which could probably be turned to pay, but realizing I have a funny resistance to this, though nothing so lofty as throwing my arm across my eyes and bemoaning my artistic integrity and more to do with my desires to please people.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-18 08:48 pm (UTC)I haven't bought much lately, due to money, but whenever I have money I tend to spend it on hobby supplies.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-18 09:13 pm (UTC)The idea being to ask personal forgiveness for projects unfinished and to have a 'place' for unfinished tasks to remind oneself of the many tasks piled up.
I keep meaning to try this. Seems like a good idea.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-19 03:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-05-19 12:58 am (UTC)Synthesis
Date: 2009-05-19 12:41 am (UTC)