Tags: #dough #notes-app [[0002. idolize no one]] I wrote a bit about this on my finsta recently. Lately, I've felt unmoored, like this chaotic comet hurtling through space with all this frenetic energy but nothing to channel it toward, nothing to crash into. I am brimming with energy and yet I have no goal. something I struggle with is having lots of ideas and not being able to focus on one. a couple of projects I've been thinking about recently---drawing Filipino parols (possibly minting as NFTs), a Figma zine documenting my life in fall 2021, an essay on how algorithms are our new gods. I've been thinking about this Figma zine for months, and the algorithms essay...probably a year now. some of the reason for not starting has to do with the fact that the majority of the day is spent working at my job, and the 9-5 corporate theatre draining my brain. but my job is certainly not all of the reason. I doubt that it's even most of the reason. even if I magically didn't have to work, I'd definitely still have this problem. The frequent advice hawked by everyone, from hustle porn stars to friendly ambitious nerds, is to just start. just start! do anything. do 1% of the thing. do it badly. and don't give up once you do start. but there's my old narcissistic frenemy, perfectionism, hanging over my head, watching over my every move. I think I've been a perfectionist for as long as I can remember. Even as a child I could not stand playing games imperfectly. I would restart game levels if I made a single mistake. I'd play through MMORPGs using the quest or achievement guides. I found it difficult to enjoy the journey without doing things perfectly. now as an adult I fail to start anything because I see the perfect creation in my head, the perfect project, I get overwhelmed by needing that perfect outcome, and I don't even try. or....I try, I start something! then I get excited about something else. then when I return to the first project, I get frustrated that I didn't stick with it, and it is now no longer the "perfect" project I envisioned. why? what are all these perfectionist tendencies rooted in? 1. a need to please the self. somewhat straightforward, right? I want my designs to be good, my writing to be insightful, my art to be beautiful. I actually want to be creative, intelligent, successful. 2. a need to please the people around me. I want my parents to be proud of me. I want my grandmother to be proud of me. I want my friends to see me as creative, intelligent, successful. 3. a fear of looking stupid. I don't like people watching me do things that are incorrect, bad, ugly, not to my taste. 4. a fear of being stupid. I don't like ***doing*** things that are incorrect, bad, ugly, not to my taste. It freaks me out that I'm not as good as I want to be. I am daunted by the prospect of my own incompetence, and the years necessary to become competent. and yet, the years pass anyway. All of this is about me fixating on outcomes, I think. Needing outcomes. That, and self-obsession. Needing the outcome of creating beautiful things, being liked, not looking stupid. Obsessing over what others think of me. Instead of enjoying the process of creating beautiful things, making friends, and dealing with the looking stupid and sometimes not being liked that is part of that. How does one enjoy the process? How does one stop caring what others think? I don't have a good answer, or solution. I'm trying to figure it out, and one of the things I'm trying is...this whole writing exercise. Just writing as much as possible and seeing what happens. --- Created: November 05, 2021 Last Modified: November 05, 2021