(no subject)

[solitary_summer]

I really believe livejournal has made me a more introspective person. Which is... ironic, almost, because if you'd asked me at any point of my life, I'd probably have said I already was that; quiet, shy, introverted... introspective. Was I? I'm not sure. It's hard -- impossible, really -- to remember what went on in one's mind ten or fifteen or more years ago. I applied analysis to others, but rarely to myself. I wasn't inclined to question things on a fundamental level, that much I remember; I never even understood the need for philosophy at school. (Then again, the last may have something to do with our psychology/philosophy teacher, who wasn't particularly inspiring, to say the least.) Our French teacher's fondness for existentialism bored me.

Perhaps I didn't like to look at myself too closely for fear of what I'd discover. Or perhaps it's natural to face the world with more certainty and less self-awareness at an age when you haven't becomes so aware of how changes are going to work within and around you, of your limitations and possibilities.

My memories of my last school years and early university years are not bad (I didn't have a boyfriend, but I always had a few good friends, and generally liked my life, mostly) -- it's hard trying to pinpoint the time when I started to... slip so much. The Crush-on-M. disaster. My friendship with A. slowly drifting apart, as she became more and more career-focused, and the early university friendships becoming less and less satisfactory, and somewhat lacking in depth as I changed and became rather more prone to questioning both myself and the world around me. Constantly being torn between artistic and academic aspirations (both words sound a lite too pretentious, considering my lack of dedication and seriousness, hence the strike-tag), and being unable to make up my mind, too cowardly to make a real decision, hiding my cowardice behind the 'sensible', 'reasonable' arguments in favour of getting a degree. And then, because it was too late for anything else anyway, because the decision had already been made and I was frightened of making another one, go on and write a diss.


I'm unsure how to describe this, but it rather feels like as if at one point I ceased to exist as a person, at least to a certain extent; lost myself. Maybe/probably it was the lack of romantic relationships, or, at this point, any kind of genuinely meaningful, inspiring relationship that might have pushed me further or challenged me personality-wise. And I said to soavezefiretto that for a while during university, especially the Diplomarbeit/diss phase, I almost entirely lost the enjoyment of reading literature for pleasure, for imagination and ideas. I spent whole days at the library, and as a counter-balance read mostly SF/fantasy novels for emotional gratification, quite a few of which I now blush at having enjoyed. Nothing that influenced my mind or world-view, broadened my horizons, helped me understand life a little better -- that only came from academic reading at the time, if at all. Looking back, it is sad, a little frightening and rather significant that almost all books and/or authors that really influenced me come either from a period of my life up to my early/mid-twenties, or from the last few years.


And for a while even I thought I could juggle this, diss, part-time job; ceramics, even. Of course I couldn't. I didn't have the determination or energy.

Depression intensified, inspiration vanished, because where was it supposed to come from?

At one time I'd reached a point when university, the diss, became something to hide behind, from my self, first and foremost. I knew wasn't getting anywhere with it (*), but it was so much tied up with my reflex of pleasing, over-achieving, that I kept pretending I was still going to finish it and get a doctorate, even when I was barely working on it any more, and effectively knew this was never going to happen, because so much of my self-image was hanging on it, and pretty much all of my self-esteem -- there was nothing else to hang it on any longer.

(*) [Not that the subject didn't interest me (it did), or that I wasn't good enough (I was, or so I was told), but between the book-store job and my increasingly messed up mental state I simply lacked the energy to dedicate all my free time to the diss, especially when the likelihood of ever getting a paid job out of it became more and more improbable.]

And it paralysed me. Ceramics wasn't going anywhere either, after a few arts & craft markets; No time, because I was so very busy pretending to write a diss, but more importantly, no inspiration, and while you can perfectly well research and not notice, or pretend not to notice, the gaping void within yourself -- or distract yourself from it, even -- it's a lot harder to lie to yourself through art. I never pretended to be perfect, but there are quite a few sculptures I still keep around, because I'm really rather fond of them, but there was a point when it became painfully obvious that everything I made lacked honesty, it'd become repetitive, fake.

In the end I wasted years where I didn't do much of anything, except manage to keep a job, which perhaps counts for a very little something, and sink deeper into depression.

The friendship with A. had petered out to a point where we lost contact almost entirely, until I broke it off, because I couldn't bear being left with so little. Still no boyfriend. Instead, enter G. I've recently re-read some of the angry and hurt e-mails exchanged after our recurring fights, and certainly this sort-of, on-and-off friendship we had going wasn't helpful, the way he constantly managed to make me feel guilty and bad about myself. On the other hand, I did learn a few things about myself, too, fighting my way out of this mess, so I shouldn't be too hard on him.

The same has to be said for university, if I'm to be honest. I do tend to believe it was, on the whole, a good thing to finally make a long overdue, clean decision and accept that the diss was a lost cause, and, even more importantly, to realise to what an extent the whole of it was tied up with my personality flaws, my perfectionsim and over-eagerness to please (ersatz-)father figures -- that is, the immature parts of my personality; it was painful, but also liberating in the end, a mental block being removed. I don't think it's entirely coincidental that not so long after I began to slowly to make my way out of depression. If I had been offered a paying job in this field I probably would have gone on hiding behind books and long-dead strangers' lives for a whole lot longer.

Still looking outside rather than inside.

On the other hand I cannot deny that it formed my personality, changed my view of the world in major ways, especially with the direction I took for my Diplomarbeit and diss, and even now, i can't really regret it. (Is it the sign of a strangely ego-centric personality that I can't seem to really regret any part of my life, however pathetic or painfully wasted? It brought me where I am now, after all, and at least in this moment, typing this, I feel there could be worse places to be. Or perhaps it's just too frightening and potentially dangerous to consider who else I could have been...)

Or perhaps this is just growing up, and I'm being disproportionally melodramatic about it?



So, to go back to the beginning, I do believe that livejournal has helped a lot to make me more self-aware by making me to turn inward. Although, if I am to be honest, and I don't much care how ridiculous this might sound coming from someone who was in her late twenties at the time, I think the first step in this direction was through NIN's music. It gave me words and a means of expression for what I felt, that I hadn't had and forced me to face what was going on. So perhaps it also led to a period of prolonged wallowing, but in the end I think it did help, by setting me on a path of analysing feelings, expressing them. And keeping a journal regularly for almost fours years had to lead to the occasional self-revelation at least...



I think I have a better sense of myself now. The sad thing, however, is, that I still have no clear idea what to do with it, or where to go from there.

Friendship/relationship wise... I'm at least at a point where I can occasionally imagine not being only a burden, where I believe I might possibly be able to contribute something positive to another person's life. Some days. Others not so much. And that's not even touching the current confusion about sexual orientation (or lack thereof) and the fact that it still takes me years, almost, to open up to someone.

Just as some days I feel like I'm at least partly in control of my life, have a reasonable intellectual capacity and understanding of things, etc, whereas others I feel like a fraud, because whatever delusions of academia I had, they're dead & buried in an unmarked grave, and I'm really not as well-read as I like to give the impression and... sometimes I'm certain that I should have been the person who is content producing tea-cups and such, nothing more.


And perhaps all of the above is just self-indulgent crap.




...accompanied by another picture from yesterday.

Comments

[un-crayon-rouge.livejournal.com]

Is it the sign of a strangely ego-centric personality that I can't seem to really regret any part of my life, however pathetic or painfully wasted?

On the contrary. Time, and thus, life, just is. It conforms us, and, like you said, makes us what we are. So, it can never be "wasted".

Oh crap, I'm getting profound. Anyway, I loved this entry. Thanks for sharing. It made me think about my own university time. There are even now several *years* of my life where I am not sure what was going on, everything's so blurred. I even threw away my journals, and I still wonder why. I must have been very unhappy without realising it. Huh. *scratches head*

All of which, of course, I should make into a post on my own journal, instead of spamming up yours.

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

Thank *you* for reading. :)

Blurred indeed. Writing this, I had to make an actual effort to bring some structure into these years. I stopped keeping a journal in 1995 and didn't start again until 2002... so I had to stick to a few, er, Eckdaten, but emotionally, personally, it's so... blank.

And I hope you know I'd never consider anything (whenever, wherever, whatever length) you'd say as spam. Livejournal is a little zwiespältig this way, a journal, but I also see it as a means of communication, so comments are always welcome.