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Week Off!

5 years ago - Edited 5 years ago1,082 words

I've not worked on Divine Dreams this week, so no Development post! I feel better after taking some time off, though; I probably needed a break.

The main reason I randomly decided to take this week off was because my parents - who I still live with, and who, despite being twice my age, have a much more active social life than I've ever had - went away on holiday, which threw off my regular routine a bit.

We live next to this community centre thing, which my step-dad's the caretaker of, and rather than them closing it while they were away, I was assigned to look after it. All that really involved was putting a bunch of fold-up tables and chairs out or away, and locking or unlocking the door at specific times, but some of those times were hours later than the stupidly early time I've been sleeping, so I had to stay up, and my circadian rhythm's been disrupted. I also struggled to be calm with that looming in the background, knowing that in the phenomenally unlikely event that anything went wrong, it'd be my fault. Or maybe someone would come knocking on the door asking for something about it, which has happened before.

So, I decided to take a break myself. I get the impression that the prevailing idea regarding work in the Western world is that any time not spent going full-on is to be looked down on. If you're not working, you're slacking!! But it's like trying to stay up for days on end so then you can GET MORE DONE even though obviously your body isn't going to allow you to actually do that. In the past, I've abandoned a bunch of different projects because they just got so incredibly draining to work on after weeks focused entirely on them, and I definitely don't want that to happen with this. So I think that taking time away is actually going to increase the amount I get done in the long run, rather than delaying anything.

When the week started, I had every intention of doing things related to development but which aren't actually development, like replying to comments, researching promotion, etc; I wrote about it in a couple of previous entries. Early on, though, I decided instead that it'd be a better idea to just put the whole thing out of my mind completely, and focus on unrelated stuff so then I could come back afterwards feeling actually refreshed. So that's what I did.

I also intended to play some games (like Undertale), but that didn't happen! Seems my idea of 'time off' involves spending 8-10 hours a day madly focused on creative stuff, and that's how I feel the most energised. I composed some music, after wanting to for a while! And I did some other visual stuff, too; I was struggling with the animations for the characters and monsters I made for Divine Dreams, so I animated some other stuff to become more familiar with that. Plus I drew, even wrote some stuff. Worked on some little projects.

I don't intend to show any of what I worked on though. It's not exactly interesting anyway, so there's that, but knowing that other people's judgements will be involved at some point in the creative process, and trying to do things in a certain way so as to please them, adds a lot of weight that just isn't there when only trying to please myself. I get the impression people might see creators as people with a duty to make things that others can enjoy, they're just machines that do the production or something... But what ultimately drives me to be creative in the first place is a desire to make things I like, so it's been re-energising just doing that for a few days.

I feel that my mental health's been a lot better these past few days; I've felt light rather than heavy, amused rather than beaten-down, eager rather than reluctant. I suspect a big part of it's just having a place to myself, though; I hope getting to the point where I can actually afford a place of my own is something that becomes a reality sooner rather than later (or never)!

Oh, I did start researching overcoming anxiety issues though; that's one of the things I said I'd do. I started listening to an audiobook that a therapist I saw back in university recommended, about overcoming social anxiety and 'shyness'. I've likened shyness, social anxiety, and avoidant personality disorder to a Pokemon evolution family like Charmander, Charmeleon, and Charizard before, so whatever I have is basically that but at the far - 'most evolved' - end.

It's sort of annoying though. I've said this before, I think, but it seems to take the basic assumption that the negative thoughts and assumptions that serve as the foundation for these conditions must be inaccurate. People with social anxiety worry that people will judge or reject them for being odd or inappropriate, it correctly says. So if they just control their assumptions about this, they'll be fine! Nobody's really going to judge you!! It seems so naively idealistic. I invite anyone who believes that nobody would really judge them to have a conversation where they stare non-stop at the other person while constantly licking their lips, and including 'the n word' in as many sentences as they can. But it's all in your head!!

The author also makes the assumption that everyone's been properly socialised via a healthy childhood, which is strange, and annoying. A couple of times, bits have begun "we were all taught as children...". But no, we weren't all taught how to be 'ordinary' functional human beings during our formative years, and missing out on certain things during that phase does lead to lingering impairments in blending in fully with people who have all received the same standard, healthy programming.

Still, I'll keep up with it. I haven't made the CBT tool I talked about previously because I wanted to remind myself of what the therapists and research says first. I'll try to pick out the bits that I feel are actually relevant to me as I go.

I'm unsure whether to just go straight back to dev work tomorrow, or whether to try and do some of the other stuff I meant to do this week but didn't; maybe I'll try to find a balance between the two, or something!