Productivity or No?

I’m writing this blog post to describe a difference in experience.

Earlier today I was the timer for a Scholastic Bowl tournament. Feeling creative, I started writing a story in the margins of the score sheet. I had no intention of saving this story; I merely wanted to pass the time, and I could always make another story.

A few of my distant friends who were also timers or moderators enjoyed the story I wrote over 4 sheets. But there was something fundamentally different about this experience than the other times when I was a timer and didn’t write a story. Even though I was more productive in the short term, and just as unproductive in the long term, I am much more unhappy than I would have been if I hadn’t written that story.

Is it the dissatisfaction of leaving the story behind? I left the story open-ended to ease the transition between rounds, and I already have ideas for where the characters could go next. Would it have been better if I had not created any characters, and not created any story, and therefore would not be distressed about what would happen next, and spend the rest of my life wondering what could have been?

Indeed, I live with many regrets of past projects. Most of them were formed when I was young, and I can assure myself that those projects were immature and silly. But as I grow older, I have better ideas that crowd up my mind. And I have to choose a few to keep, and the rest to let go. If only I had a friend who could tell me which ones were worth saving!

New Years Resolution

I am typing this from my bed for a good reason.

I have done so little to show who I am to the world. And every moment I dwell on that fact, a fear inside me burns deeper and deeper. I go to sleep to forget about it, and it works, but soon those nights themselves burn deeper within me, and I realize that I’m wasting my life.

I have ideas. Bold ideas. I don’t know if they’re great ideas, but I think they’re great. What I want is to show them to everyone else. But I can’t. They’re trapped in my mind.

Those ideas in my mind used to be toys to me when I was little. I didn’t need to play with anyone else, because I had my own toys to play with.

What a selfish fool I was.

Ever since I matured, and my powers of empathy swelled, I realize that no one else knows what I’ve been thinking. I can’t trust anyone to tell me that I am great because the puerile work I gave them when I was young is still up to snuff. I want to show them my dreams. I want to show them my toys. But they’re like fossils, perfectly formed, and up to me and only me to dig out, careful not to crack them, careful to get them clean.

And it takes so long to know how to use the right axe. But I can’t go asking people for tools, because they don’t know me. I can’t show it to them, because only I know their form in the rock, and to let someone else dig them up would inevitably break them.

So it’s just me, with my little knife, digging things up.

Honesty. How can I be honest? I don’t know what’s right or wrong in this world. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t part of this world. Why is it so hard to share my toys with the world?

……

I wish I could go to the Illinois Institute of Art. I wish I could let them accept me. I have to go to art school. It’s not just a hypothetical fantasy. It’s the only thing I have left to live on. I need to know how to use those tools. I need to get those tools.

And I don’t really care about Mal and Belle anymore. The Sims 3 is less exciting than I thought. I don’t care about Pet Tamers, either. It’s just not the sort of thing I like.

My goal by the end of the year? Make some spectacular. Something that will make me known. Even just in an obscure way to a community, or even to a single person, would be good enough for me.