GUESS WHAT BUDDY BOY I finally have a regular human schedule again!
Yesterday was my last day working as an interpreter for FEMA, which means it’s time to put on my big girl pants and get back in the game. These past few months have been *very* socially, emotionally, and physically taxing at times. I’m still trying to process how I feel about… everything…
Let me tell you, working within the colonialist system that is more or less strangling your homeland can really warp a person’s sense of security, with their place in the world, with their actions within it… I have a lot a thoughts, and confused emotions, about the whole *thing*
But overall, I’m just glad I’m still here. I’m grateful I still have options, and the means and freedom to pursue my art, and people who love and support me.
So Irma’s coming to town tomorrow, midday ish. I’m currently in San Juan PR so my area is going to be, um, real fucked. Hard fucked. It’s gonna be a bad time.
I have no idea how awful the fallout is going to be, we’ll *definitely* be losing water and power for a while. I haven’t been able to work at all lately because I’ve been so anxious about everything, too on edge to function.
So! Rough times ahead. If I disappear for a while, I’m very probably not dead, just incommunicado due to lack of electricity and internet. I’ll be back when things settle down, but I can’t and won’t make any promises as to when that’ll be.
To everyone else in Irma’s path, stay safe, I wish us all the best and hope we can get through this awfulness together.
It was an interview with Rick Rubin on the Lex Fridman podcast. I don’t normally listen to that one. The episodes run for hours. But I grew up listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Rick Rubin produced pretty much all their albums.
I wasn’t disappointed. It was a great conversation — I recommend listening to it in full. While Rick may look like he’s sleeping on a bench outside your house, he very likely produced one of your favourite songs (and is worth like 250 million).
Midway through the conversation, Lex asked Rick whether he ever wants to go back to change something in music that he produced and released many years ago. Would he make different choices on songs from 20 years ago with all that experience that he gained since then?
The answer was not what I expected.
I struggle with this all the time. Every time I look back at something I wrote in the past, I’m embarrassed. I could make it so much better now!
Rick doesn’t feel like that at all. He said that he always works hard to make everything the best he can. Once it’s the best he can make it, it’s finished. It’s time to move on.
Any piece of art — a song, story, painting — is a reflection of a moment in time — the inspiration and your artistic ability at the time.
For him, each thing he creates is like a journal entry: it reflects what he did and thought about at that time. You wouldn’t go back to revise what you wrote in your journal two years ago. A journal entry can’t be wrong.
Honestly, I’m still recovering from the shock. It makes so much sense.
Make your art as good as you can, but no better. As you look back, you will inevitably find mistakes in your previous work. Those are a part of the journey. Nothing you create is ever wrong.
A piece of art is like a journal entry in the life of the person who made it.
You can only make one mistake: fail to write anything in your journal.
About the Author
Hi, I’m Radek . I’m a writer, software engineer and the founder of Writing Analytics — an editor and writing tracker designed to help you beat writer’s block and create a sustainable writing routine.
I publish a post like this every week. Want to know when the next one comes out? Sign up for my email list below to get it right in your inbox.
Focusing on my creative projects has been a real struggle for me recently. It’s not that I don’t have the time — I can find 15 or more minutes a day every day. The problem is that I absolutely cannot get going with anything. I’ve been wondering why.
First, I put this to fatigue, but that doesn’t quite explain what’s going on. I sleep more than I usually do.
The current suspect is headspace. I have a few projects going on at the moment which are causing me this very mild but constant stress. It’s nothing too dramatic, but I find myself thinking about these often. It’s as if these things implanted themselves into my brain. Even though I can’t resolve them now (there’s a fixed deadline in the future), these things are taking space that I can’t use to work on other things.
Some people are great at compartmentalising their lives so that no single aspect affects the other. I’m not one of them. I wish I was better at it.
Headspace is one of those insidious things. There isn’t any clear indicator to tell you that you don’t have enough. You’re not getting anywhere, beating yourself up about not being productive.
Sometimes, the lack of headspace prevents you from even seeing all the opportunities that are available to you. And you remain stuck. My theory is that the pandemic and the lockdowns caused many to reconsider their situation because it was the first time in years that they had some headspace.
I don’t have any evidence for it, but I feel like meditation helps you to train yourself to let go of certain things when they aren’t important — to get more headspace.
Excuse me while I go sit with my eyes closed for ten minutes, trying not to think about anything.
About the Author
Hi, I’m Radek . I’m a writer, software engineer and the founder of Writing Analytics — an editor and writing tracker designed to help you beat writer’s block and create a sustainable writing routine.
I publish a post like this every week. Want to know when the next one comes out? Sign up for my email list below to get it right in your inbox.
I hate writing terrible first drafts. Just piling words onto the page without thinking about the consequences too much. I know that terrible first drafts should have flaws — that’s the whole point. If it doesn’t suck then it isn’t a terrible first draft. But knowing about those issues and moving on makes my brain hurt.
I’m not entirely sure why this happens. I am aware of all the advice. You can always fix it later. You can’t edit a blank page. Anything is better than nothing. Sure.
Knowing something and being able to act on it are two very different things.
It could be a case of simple risk aversion. Perhaps I’m worried that by moving fast without taking time to thoroughly think about every twist and turn in the story, it’ll end up being a giant mess.
Cooking is a good analogy for this. Some people clean up as they prepare their meals. It takes longer, but you don’t have to do all the cleaning after you eat. I do this pretty often.
People on the other end of the spectrum pretty much trash their kitchen every time they cook. They use as many pots, pans and plates as they need and leave them dirty all over the place. Whatever it takes to make their meal faster.
The difference between writing and cooking is that cooking is a lot more predictable. You’re either following a recipe or doing something you’ve done many times before. You know all the steps ahead of time so a little detour here and there won’t affect you too much.
When writing, nothing is truly certain. You may have an outline, but that isn’t set in stone. You could wake up tomorrow and change your mind if you come up with a better idea. Getting to the finished product as fast as possible is crucial because that’s the only way to find out whether it’ll work.
And so I’m here, learning how to make a mess, trying to convince my brain to let me write terrible first drafts. It’s harder than it looks.
About the Author
Hi, I’m Radek . I’m a writer, software engineer and the founder of Writing Analytics — an editor and writing tracker designed to help you beat writer’s block and create a sustainable writing routine.
I publish a post like this every week. Want to know when the next one comes out? Sign up for my email list below to get it right in your inbox.
Update:It isn’t letting me delete my tumblr so I guess i’m going on hiatus.
Update on him:he understands better now, he was more upset with my way of saying it rather than what I actually said. I just hope we both come out on the other side clean and happy, no matter how it turns out. He’s still interested in talking to me.
I’m deleting my Tumblr as soon as I remember my password.
Q & A
WHY:Because I can. And I want to. I dont feel a need to keep it any longer. I ruined my entire fucking life feeling this way. Done playing the game, I guess.
WILL YOU BE BACK:no.
WHY CANT YOU STAY: Because I don’t have a teacher crush anymore.
DONT LET THE DOOR HIT YOUR ASS ON THE WAY OUT: thank you
WHAT HAPPENED:Nothing happened. That’s the point.
FINAL ADVICE
I am going to be real here. Mad real. Speaking from straight experience. Dont be a chicken shit. You got the feelings for them? You think those feelings are real and not a whim? Say it. Say it to them as soon as you can. Don’t cover it up. Don’t let it fester. Dont let it eat you alive like a fucking living and breathing, decaying disease. Dont let it drag you down, beat you up, make you feel like a useless piece of dogshit. SAY IT. If it’s just a crush, DONT BOTHER CHASING. I spent over THREE fucking YEARS of my life loving this beautiful fucking man. I still love him. FUck. But BE REAL WITH YOURSELF. It took me losing EVERYTHING and then some to realize this is a JOKE. You will get lost. Ungodly lost. To the point you have no clue where the ever living FUCK you came from or where you were going. You’ll hate your heart’s compass, and you’ll curse your brain. But damn it, you will get through it. YOU WILL. I DID.IT IS SO FUCKING LIBERATING.
I broke down crying. I cried because I loved him. I cried because I hated him. I cried because he wouldn’t ever feel this way about me. And man, I hated him so fucking much. I actually hated him by the end of it because I loved him with EVERY inch of my heart and soul. He would never feel the same way. I grew to despise him for everything. “Why can’t I be with you?”. “Why can’t I be happy with you?”. “Why can’t we be a thing?”. These fruitless fucking questions are just honeytraps to keep you stuck meddling with useless emotions. IGNORE THEM. FIGHT THEM. GET RID OF THEM. The second you stop asking yourself those questions are the second you can BREATHE and TAKE A DEEP BREATH.
I love every one of you. Everyone who stuck with me for this entire ride. Please don’t let my story be useless and take my experience and advice. It’s okay to love, but you need to be real and more importantly, STAY BALANCED. The second you ask those questions above, YOU’RE IN TOO DEEP. Stay alive and strong out there, TCers.
What? I just told him everything I have been asking was for him and about him and he’s either too preoccupied to notice what I am really saying, he doesn’t care, or he is actually that oblivious to it?
Oof. I told him about the feelings, leaving out the part it’s about him. I asked him what I should do. He told me to confront the person, tell them my honest feelings, and at the very least, I would be feeling better having it off my chest…
I asked him what he would do if someone said that to him.
“If I respected them, I would listen to them.”
I could tell him… but it will never be the same again…
It is getting to the point it makes me sick, you know? I cannot really tell him either… and that is the part that makes me sick. What if I told him and he leaves? I don’t want to lose his friendship. I don’t want to make it awkward… or ruin anything…
I think it would alleviate a lot of my mental pain, specifically in our situation, if I told him my honest feelings towards him. Which includes the times I love him as a parental figure, as well as the times I love him for being him.
But like I said, I don’t want to lose him. For all the bad times, there have been a million good times that have been overlooked because of my insecurities. I don’t think it is fair the way I treat him for my own feelings. Most of my “anger” towards him is because of the guilt. Why do I love a guy who’s already happy?
I fell in love with every part about him. His gorgeous smile. His beautiful eyes. His little quirks. His abundant intelligence. His warm voice, and the way he says my full name. His different, more higher pitched voice when he is upset, or doesn’t want to do something. His little nicknames he gives me, and the way he grins when he says them. His bad days when he is grumpy and temperamental and wants to stay in bed. His good days when he is bubbly and on top of the world and could brighten the room. His ambitions, and his dreams. His creativity, and his sensitivity. His loving way of viewing the world, and the individual things around him. The way he always makes a comment on my appearance when I walk in the door. The way he always asks how I have been. How we joke with each other like there is no one else in the world, and how we click like yin and yang. Our differences, whether it is a way of viewing something, or just our age and gender.
I could go on all day about everything I love about him. Even the things I should dislike about him, I still love him for it.
And the saddest thing is he would never know any of this. I could tell him, but it would be at the cost of what we have now.
Even if he felt the same way, or kindly accepted my feelings (as in: letting me down easy and continuing to care about me and talk to me), we would never be able to do anything with it… I just don’t know if the risk is worth it…
When I talked to him last time in person, and was explaining my trip to the emergency room to him, I told him how I was sitting at the park in my car freaking out. He was confused on how I ended up at the hospital, and I told him I called the ambulance and they showed up and took me to the hospital.
He was like “Oh, I thought like a cop came up and called them or something”. I rebutted with “No. God no. If a cop came up to me in that moment, that would have been really bad.” I meant it as in I would freak out on them, and maybe even gotten in trouble.
So he looked at me weirdly and was quiet for a tiny bit. “Why..? Were you being naughty or something..?”. He asked it in such a genuine way and like he wasn’t just joking.
Like NO I WASNT. WHY DO YOU ASK? Lol.
I think he sometimes misses hearing about my wild adventures. I used to tell him everything and we would laugh about it, but things have changed a lot and we dont have that leisure anymore…
That was pretty nice. We didn’t really talk about any heavy personal problems, we just kind of talked about random stuff. Finished each other’s sentences more than normal. Felt really in line with him today.
We got on the topic of drinking, and he said he is a really talkative drunk after I said I was a super social drunk. So I was like “In a year on my 21st birthday, we should go to a bar”. He thought about it for a few seconds and said “Yeah if bars will even be open”. He never said no, so I might bug him next year about it. (:
I mentioned something about my rings I was wearing and how I didn’t really like wearing rings because they catch on everything (but they’re pretty, that’s why I wear them), and he said “I wear one. I don’t want to but I have to”. And he was just kind of staring off while I was looking right at him. It went awkwardly quiet for a few seconds and I was just like “ANYWAYS…”
Yeah… it was an interesting conversation and meeting. I don’t know why we can’t be like that all the time…
My birthday this year kind of means a lot… finally out of the “teens”, which is a bunch of years I want to put behind me. I have been having a really shitty last few weeks and I was looking forward to a day where I could maybe feel decent about myself and be relatively special.
But you know, the one person who knows me better than anyone and talks to me the most completely forgot about it… I am not even going to tell him it is my birthday…. he should remember. Especially since I told him a week ago about it and what this year meant to me.
Never in a million years would I forget his birthday (and I understand birthday celebrations are designed for children, and he thinks they are not important *to adults* but it doesn’t make the day any less special). How can you forget something like it? Especially if it is important to someone?
