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alu-cor438 · 6 years

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Today I want to talk about some media and other things that I feel relate to happiness.

The first thing is the three Secret Santa exchanges I’ve done through Reddit Gifts. I thought they were supposed to make you happy, because spending on other people is the best way money can make you happy, right? I didn’t really feel overwhelming joy from looking at the photos my giftees posted, though. I think it was tempered by the fact that I overestimated how happy it would make me, and that I was nervous my gifter wouldn’t follow through.

The second thing is Read Only Memories: 2064, which is a visual novel game about a sapient AI named Turing who recruits a journalist to find Turing’s creator, after Turing and their creator’s shared apartment was broken into. At one point, they find footage that shows their creator being murdered, and Turing struggles to reconcile with their feelings of sorrow and anger. They acknowledge that they could turn those feelings off, but refuses to as that wouldn’t make them themselves anymore. Here’s a video of this exchange. I absolutely cannot relate to this, as I’ve said before. I know that negative emotions do serve a purpose, but given the chance to turn them off, I would take that chance while maybe feeling kinda guilty about it.

The third thing is the longest. The Private Report on my Lesbian Experience with Loneliness (link here, scroll to read and arrows to switch between chapters, also there’s a page missing for some reason) is a memoir style manga that touches on a lot of topics, including sexuality, mental health, and finding what you want to do with your life. I have to reread this manga, though, because it’s been a few weeks, so I’m going to write my thoughts as I go (it’s really short). (In hindsight, is this a good idea? It draws more from personal experience than literature, and talks a lot about sex. It’s not a porn manga, though, so maybe it’ll be ok. Besides, I don’t think I’ve ever written this much in one sitting, even if it’s not very coherent.)

The author talks about being happy to be broken in the first chapter. I really feel that, as much as I’d like to turn my bad feelings off. I’ve had depression for so long that I don’t know what lasting happiness is, or what it feels like to be content with your life, and I’m really used to it.

I know it’s a bad path to go down, but I wish I had the ability to self harm sometimes. It’s different from skin picking because that’s something I do when I’m bored and it doesn’t always hurt. I wish I could externalize painful feelings the way she describes. (I just remembered that I wanted to mention somewhere that skin picking isn’t the only time I experience flow. At the knitting event I got so into picking up a dropped stitch that I couldn’t hear the person talking to me.) I’m just too scared of physical pain to do it, it’s a challenge to get me to even do vaccines and blood draws.

“It never seemed like my parents had any interest in admitting that their daughter was sick.” I do feel like my parents bring up my mental health only to ask if the medications are working. I guess it could be worse, though.

I think one of the reasons I’ve been putting so much personal stuff into these posts, is that it’s the only outlet I have that isn’t a person.

She also talks about needing a place to belong. I do have places where I kind of belong I guess, but even then I feel like an outsider.

“I was always rushing around somewhere, no matter what time it was, never feeling happy or comfortable anywhere.” I’m constantly picking things up that I think I want to do for the rest of my life, and then it turns out it’s really hard and then I drop it. (The only things this hasn’t happened to are knitting, sewing and ceramics, which is why I want to get into the arts. I think the difference is that I can see where I went wrong) I also sometimes show up half an hour to an hour early to things because I just feel like I have to be somewhere.

I just got to the part where the interviewer tells her that she should try going for a career in manga, and I realized that all the interviews I’ve been to were because I felt like that was my duty as a CS major, to get a job in that field.

I also relate to when she says she’d rather be stuck making herself seem better than she is, than have the people in her life reject her for doing what she actually likes. It’s why I haven’t told my parents about my post grad plan, I’m afraid they’ll reject me.

“The thoughts in my head would just keep slipping away, like I’d forgotten to close a latch somewhere. I found I couldn’t read anymore.” That’s basically me, right down to the inability to read (though for me it applies more to long form text).

I’m going to skip the part about sexuality and hiring the lesbian prostitute, even though it does kinda apply to me since I’m bi.

She talks about hiring the lesbian prostitute like its a summit that will bring her happiness, like the opposite of Art Kramer. Of course, she overestimates how it makes her feel, because it’s just one step in her happiness journey.

Now that I think about it, happiness isn’t totally a journey is it? Doesn’t Happiness (the book) say to enjoy both the journey and the destination?

She says that the reason that people can get up in the morning and be punctual is because of a “sweet nectar,” something that makes you feel like you have a place in the world. It’s like how the book says that happy people have more energy. I wonder if I’ll find mine, or if I’ve already found it without realizing...

“Anyone drinking the sweet nectar who takes their job and the people around them lightly is being lazy, but not drinking the nectar, and being unable to work on an empty stomach is because you’re not taking care of yourself.” Which one am I? Did I find my nectar in CS? Did I take it too lightly and become lazy? Or did I never find it in the first place?

Well, that’s it. I’m posting now.

#post

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