Hello, World.
Hello, world. As the programmers say, anyway. And I am not one, despite having gone through a grueling software engineering bootcamp several years ago which resulted in nary a single software engineering job offer, but very rapidly preceded a well-paying and prestigious salaried position (albeit an unrelated one). Which I proceeded to snatch up in a heartbeat, as I was desperately broke at the time (just as I am now—my life has been bookended with brokeness). Anyway, I stuck it out for a few years, enjoying the newfound purpose (ish) and additional money in my pocket, but lamenting my own cowardice and fear of achieving my own dreams, not to mention facing my own demons.
Anyway. I got laid off, and now I’m here. Struggling to accomplish what I feel I know, on some level, I was always born to do. Yet I never seem to be able to get around to doing it. Whose fault is that, I wonder? Mine, obviously, but is there anyone or anything I can blame other than myself? I find it highly unlikely, unless you count my trauma. But all that said, here I go again on my own. Going down the only road I’ve ever known…
In any case, what I wanted to write about today was my stunning realization (that had really been a long time coming) that everything I know is wrong. Specifically, the idea that more introspection = more happiness (and eventual escape from my mental and emotional woes) is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. Or at least, if it’s true at all, I’ve blazed past the Point of Diminishing Returns long, long ago. Like, decades ago, if you can believe it.
I’ve come to realize that the more I introspect and brood about my life, my flaws and shortcomings, my neurological maladies, my childhood, my, my, my, the more mired in my own crap I become—and the more of a vice grip my demons, past and present, have on me. The more I disengage, the happier I am, to paraphrase a very wise sea star.
My OCD has been an absolute nightmare the past several months since my economic fall from grace (and due to other factors I won’t go into just yet), but if I’m honest, I already had the door cracked open for it to overtake me even in the best of times. I was always unwilling to truly disengage, to let go, to take the leap of faith that maybe my worst fears didn’t have to—maybe even shouldn’t— rule me.
Anyway. That’s why I’m here, typing away, on an anonymous blogging platform, under an account made with a burner email, using a VPN. I was going to post on Everything2 first, but I find that a little intimidating, since it appears to be a small, relatively close-knit platform with some established social norms, and I don’t want to stick my foot in it right off the bat, so I’ll read the room a bit and ease into posting there, too—hopefully under the same username (eep!).
I don’t know why exactly this is, but I’ve always been scared shitless of making anything of myself due to the nebulous fear of being “canceled”/having my life ruined/you name it, and after several unceremonious stops and starts, I know I can’t go on living like this anymore. My soul has been cleaved in half, with the part that is living for my dreams stuffed under the floorboards, and like the Tell-Tale Heart, it never, ever stops beating.
It will drive me mad if I let it, and I’ll probably implode out of pure melancholy and inability to properly integrate with myself, so enough is fucking enough. I’m writing and posting publicly, regardless if anyone cares. Even if what I say is stupid, or lame, or gasp immoral, or even offensive.
I’m setting a goal to write here every day. Will I meet it every single day? Maybe, maybe not, but no matter what happens, even if I fail, I’ll get up every morning, dust myself off, and try again. Because nothing is futile if it has love and effort behind it. I’m tired of abandoning my own dreams.
Here I go again, on my own.