Tag: dribble

I don’t need the change the world

jeffohrstrom

I don’t need to change the world. I’d settle for just changing myself. That thought popped into my head today, and though I don’t fully know what it means, I feel it.

I guess I’ve been sour lately. Out of sorts, but I don’t know if I’d ever been in sorts. Maybe I’ve always been and I’m simply just realizing it.

This is all just dribble. Modern day, privileged, middle class horse shit.  I have too many things. I don’t know where I’m going. I’m not doing anything.  There are no more frontiers. I’m not afraid of anything anymore. And I’m angry at things I can’t define.

I’m just bored. And tired.

I have no next thing. I’ve never had good future planning skills. I moved out to LA a bright eyed idiot from small town. And it was amazing. It was new and fresh, it was my first real job, and the real start of my adult life.

Then somewhere in there, it wasn’t the start anymore. I grew into myself and … I don’t know how to finish that sentence. I know there’s an and in there, I just don’t know what comes next. And I guess that’s the problem.

I’m tired of watching TV. Let me rephrase; I’m tired of being OK with watching so much TV.  I’m tired of being content with watching other people’s stories and not really putting the time into my own.  As I type I’m watching Cops, and loving it. I’m much more interested in a moment in someone else’s life from 20 years ago than my own.

 

I hate to sound so melodramatic. So cliche. In some ways that’s the worst of it. Knowing that this feeling is so completely ubiquitous in our culture. That isolation, ironically, is widespread.

A list of things I aught to do;

  • Quit my job
  • Get a girlfriend
  • Move
  • Take a vacation
  • Finish this list

 

 

A few days later…

It’s nothing short of amazing what a weekend, mind altering substances, finding some new music and making progress on a personal project (or probably anything) will do to your general outlook on life.

Do I feel the same way? Probably, but much less so; I just can’t sustain such gloomy feelings. And for that I have to be thankful.

But now is Sunday evening and so it’s natural to feel good. Work is stressful. Not work in and of itself, but certainly work in an environment that you can’t completely control is; or at least can be, but also is for me.

 

And so I’m going to start another week. Wax and wane between happiness and despair. Cynicism in the corporate structure and faith in myself and my team.  I suppose that’s life; and yet, I also suppose it doesn’t have to be.

A list of things I need to keep reminding myself of:

  • Nothing is forever, even bad shit
  • My github needs to be my escape
  • Spotify exists, and that’s awesome because by extension, there is new music out there.
  • While changing the world may be out of reach, changing myself is most certainly not.

 

 

 

Other people

jeffohrstrom

It’s funny how other people push us to do things. Man, that’s been on my tongue for a long time. I guess it’s been a common theme for me for the past couple of weeks.

Recently someone commented on an issue on a repository of mine wondering when that particular feature would be done. My reply: Tonight’s the night! That repository had been, and probably is still, for the most part dead. I just never got a real chance to use it myself.

I thought it was a good idea, and I still do to be sure; but the idea never took at work so… I work on other, shiner, things instead.  But, someone updated the issue, someone wanted something from me. So, I’m on it.

That entire code base is likely sit and rot until someone else comes along and pushes me to do something more with it.  I don’t use it, so I don’t work on it. But by golly, if someone wants something more out of it; I’m all over it.

I like to help people.  I don’t know why, I’m just an idiot like that.  Here’s a simple example:

Someone at work: I have a problem that's cursorily involved 
in what you do.
Me: Ughhhhh, Yes please!

There’s a darker side to this phenomenon though; there always is.  In the former case it’s “Oh sure I’d love to help you/do that/show you who I am!”  In the latter it’s “Fuck you, I’ll show you who I am!”

I get a lot of that too.  There’s a Jessica Alba commercial that’s been running for a while that has that same sentiment in it. Naysayers I keep proving wrong, etc. And also buy my water. And though I find the commercial phony and over played, I still relate to it.  I still find myself trying to prove my own naysayers wrong.

 

I don’t like carrying that with me. I like to think oh I’m smart, I’m capable. I like to think things like that can’t affect me. Other people’s bullshit is just that, other people’s.

But what’s there to be done? I’m not zen enough to let it go. Dust your shoulders off.

Of course the feelgood answer would be make something positive out of the negative. Intent matters here though.

People make you do things. They force you to become who you are, who you want to be. I didn’t expect to be peer pressured at 30, yet here I am. The upside is my peers have changed and the things they’re making me do is actually positive.

Even so, the downside is I can’t just be. I still measure myself by others.  I still envy.

 

What’s to be done? I don’t know, but if I find out; I’ll remember to write it down.