2020.
By October 2020, it will have been 8 years since I finished university. In those uncertain -but-hopeful days that followed, I was willing to do everything to make myself useful to anyone. That was how I spread myself thin: I wanted to be remembered as smart, hardworking, enthusiastic and dependable.
It did not take very long for this to pay off, mercifully enough. I’ll skip the career recap, but I’ll summarize by saying I am all the better for it: I have competence seeping out the wazoo with pecuniary validation to keep me focused on the day, without worry for tomorrow. I was also spread thin — remember? — so my body, eventually, did as bodies do, and provided my brain an off switch. In 2016, I had a quiet, private breakdown and I have been recovering ever since.
I responded to this by cooling down, really cooling off. I eased into a less demanding lifestyle and grew less concerned about displaying ‘brilliance’, ‘hard work’ or even being the most resourceful person in the room. I shed all the things I used to optimize for and optimized for quiet. I became more of a recluse than I originally was, and picked up really terrible communication habits. Anything that threatened to stress or upset me, I backed away from, and for a long time, I was mellow, undisturbed. Safe.
It didn’t take me very long to realize that the things that make me feel alive are also the things that stress and upset me. I love to think about complex problems, and then solve them. When I feel myself tackling problems I already solved in a later life, I feel like I’m on a treadmill.
This means, naturally, that I could not afford to stay comfortable and safe, but I also knew my deflated brain lay in wait, threatening to do sicko mode on me if I dared to apply the amount of pressure I need to do the things I want. So, resignedly, I started to seek therapy and medication. They largely worked — on days I remembered to abide by the schedules and prescriptions.
Over the course of three years, I’ve come to understand myself more: I have become painfully aware of my limitations (of course I thought I was unstoppable before!), my blind spots, and my imperfections. I am still a proud man, but I have been humbled in several respects. I am less afraid than in the past, however. Most of my fears have happened, and what happens when that happens? You can finally destroy the safehouse and use the wood to make a boat.
On this boat, headed towards 2020, I have very simple objectives, none of them grand, all of them important to me.
Time
I have not been using my time wisely. It could serve me much better. I’m not making grand changes to my lifestyle, but I’m going to dedicate 2 hours daily (6 days a week) to doing something deep and meaningful that has a tangible end result. This includes finally getting started on that graphic novel, making those personal animation projects, building apps I’ve had conceptually implanted in my head, all that jazz. 2 hours daily for all of 2020. See how that goes.
Money
I’m going to spend money a lot more this year. Move to a good apartment because I can. Stop feeling guilty about spending money when I have commitments at home. Do things simply for the hedonistic thrill I expect from it. I’m also going to actively make *more* money, which incidentally will require me to drop my current disdain for money-seeking behavior.
Love
I’m realizing that love is something I am exceptionally bad at. I try my best, of course, but when what you consider your ‘best’ is below the nationally-accepted minimum love-giving behavioral yardstick, that’s how you get an F. And I’ve had a lot of Fs to know I’m terrible. So I’ve begun to sit up and exert myself more. I’m learning to rein in my haughtiness and listen. I’ve been told that I do not take the initiative, and that I’m not very expressive. This is good feedback, nothing to get defensive about. I will do a lot more. Increase those love grades.
Work
I’ve always had a way of dealing with life that is just arrogant and not useful to anyone at all, least of all me: I mentally check out of anything when I perceive a lack of critical thought. I don’t mind the outcome of many things: good or bad, extreme success or alarming failure, if you can prove to me that you thought deeply about it, I will stand with you forever.
This should make me someone who harps about critical thought, but it actually makes me someone who gives up quickly. I sit in any room and when I feel like no one has given a thing enough thought, I take it upon myself to do the thinking. But that is a lot of thinking; multiply the number of heads with the number of possible outcomes and you have me stuck in a mental loop. So I become slow, thinking through everyone’s process, multiplying my own work hours by a factor of x until I am no longer working efficiently. Happens a lot more than you know.
In 2020, I will trust people I work with more, or at least work to make sure the epistemic standards around me are raised significantly higher, so I can focus on what I have to do within a framework of brilliant thinkers and executors. Luckily for me, the substrates for this are are already in place.
I will also write a lot more on thevunderkind.com, returning to use it as intended: ‘theories on life and work as experienced by mogwai.’
To the year of hindsight. To 2020.
