Okay, but…I keep having this same recurring problem, which is thus: How can I attend college while living in my own apartment by myself? That requires a job; lots of money. I could deal with a non-fancy apartment. Ideally I would like to have one separate bedroom, but if I have to I wouldn’t mind living in a studio. That’s okay; I could deal with it for the greater good, you know? So cheaper options are fine.

Because, here’s the thing: I have the very real possibility of getting job at Alliant Energy in December of this year. Which would be a fantastic secretarial job, something similar to what I do now, with great benefits and much better pay, etc. That’s the kind of job that stays with you for a lifetime, I’m sure.

But…with all that great money…what about my creative pastimes? I don’t want to push those aside and just make them a hobby. If making art and writing stories makes me happiest, then I should do it for a living. It’s not impossible. (I keep getting mixed signals from society on this, though.)

The only thing I know for sure is that beginner artists and writers need to have a day job, because they really can’t survive on their art until they reach a certain point. Until you make it, I guess.

But like, that’s a great job and I wouldn’t have any time to go to college (at least, I don’t think I would).

And time keeps marching on and I still just feel like I’m wasting my youth. I should be out there doing things, using my brain, learning, creating, inventing, exploring—but I’m not. I’m not reaching my potential at all. I’m not being a person.

No

Fuck

I really, really want to go to college, but…I don’t have any money. I don’t want to do student loans. I just want to learn—I want to learn about everything! There are so many subjects I’m interested in! I want to be part of the social college atmosphere, too. I’m nineteen years old. I want to be a college student.

I’m also afraid that by the time I’m actually able to go to college the age difference would be too stark for me to properly have peers and I would just end up feeling left out and isolated like I always have.

If I act completely, totally like myself—if I really say what I’m thinking—well, I’d isolate and anger a lot of people. My skin isn’t steel like Sherlock’s. There’s no point in making enemies.

But I end up not being myself at all, and feeling bad and uncomfortable when I am (especially when there are awkward pauses, and the other person doesn’t know what to say). I just don’t know how to behave like a person.

I’m either carefully, scrupulously, incredibly boring or I’m just too weird.

All right, some new things in my world:

I really like Reddit. It’s exactly the kind of thing I’ve been looking for: lots of information and interesting discussions without wank or political leanings. It’s great. And that’s not just for scientific things or articles, either; there are some great fandom communities too, which I enjoy.

SECONDLY, someone mentioned Harry Potter games on Reddit a week ago and I was overwhelmed with nostalgia, because when I was ten years old I very dearly loved the first two Harry Potter PC games. I recently bought the second one I have been playing it practically nonstop for the past few days.

God, it’s just as wonderful and super fun as I remember! It’s amazing how well I know it, too. I know all the secret passageways; I remember all the spells, all the levels. Unfortunately the rest of the games in the series are awful, according to Amazon’s reviews.

I’ve never fallen out of love with Harry Potter; it’s just difficult to enjoy the fandom nowadays when everything is about the movies, which I strongly dislike.

Man, I do really want to go to college and be a normal person…I feel like there’s so much stuff I’m missing, like I’m not really fulfilling my full potential by just being myself. I’m so worried over the future.

Could I even possibly ever make a living off writing books or comics? Could I? I feel like the answer is always, “It’s impossibly difficult, but follow your dreams anyway.” But that’s stupid. I guess the point is just to do what makes you happy. But I won’t get successful doing what I like, so there; I’m not going to be famous or have publishers and I most certainly am not going to live off whatever I create (if I ever create anything).

But there’s nothing else I like to do. I have no other skills. I’m barely skilled at the things I practice. And I don’t really have anything to say to the world. I just don’t feel like I’m one of them. Any story that I wrote would be…totally different…and probably unrelateable, because there are basic things I just don’t know about, and I just interpret things differently, I suppose. I mean, what am I playing at? What are stories supposed to do? Ultimately, they’re about the human condition. They show you what being a person is like, in various situations, in various walks of life. In various stories. People. Humans. Well, I’m not a very good human.

My psychiatrist thought I was quite smart. She was very impressed with my ability to keep up with her (we talked a long time about psychology books and theories). But, I’m doubtful, because no one else has told me I’m smart. And never minding my middling grades in school—I know why I didn’t get good grades and it wasn’t because of intelligence, it was because of commitment—I just know so many people who are smarter, more interesting, and just generally better people than I am.

I don’t feel like I’ll ever do something worthwhile with my life. I don’t feel like there’s anything worthwhile to me at all.

And yet, I rather feel like I must be worthwhile, like I should be worthwhile…but I don’t have any evidence, and the future is cloudy and uncertain, and I’ll stick to Plan A for now because I would like at the very least to have a place to live and food on the table, and I could sacrifice personal satisfaction for that. It’s…only logical.

Yesterday I went to the art museum with some members of my family. When looking at nude art pieces, I noticed I had some involuntary arousal/uncomfortable feeling…and this is how my thoughts went:

( Bit of TMICollapse )

So, desensitization. Diminish this by desensitization and overexposure. Eventually it won’t have the same effect anymore. But, is desensitization good or bad? The concept always makes me think of Brave New World, wherein it’s definitely bad. That’s the point. That’s why the world is a dystopia. It’s awful even though everyone is happy. (I wrote an essay to no one about this once.)

That made me start thinking about society and emotional construct. Is there even “good and bad”? Should I just focus on whether or not the reactions were negative or positive? “Good and bad”—morality—is something humans made up. It doesn’t exist. It doesn’t matter to plants or snails or dolphins. What about universal morals? Ultimately, there is lawlessness.

But what about conscience, then? Conscience exists. We feel bad when we do something bad (usually; this is the normal and correct way for emotions to exist). We feel guilty, we feel regret, we feel like an idiot. And correct ourselves to not do it again, and learn a little more about the world.

Everything is because of evolution. We have complex emotions because they’re helpful. Why/how? I’m not entirely sure. Certainly happiness is good for obvious reasons; so are anxiety and fear. If you’re anxious or afraid, you wouldn’t do the things that make you feel that, so you stay alive. Instincts. But conscience? What about conscience? I don’t know.

Everything is ultimately lawless, that’s true. But humans have emotions and a conscience and they are integral to our survival. So, universal morality is based on our consciences; the collective feelings. So it does exist. But you must have a little perspective sometimes. Stepping outside of being a person—it all feels rather weird that we have such intricacies like this, when no other living thing on Earth does. When everything else just feeds and procreates. Very weird, very weird.

It’s thoughts like these that makes me wonder where we’re going and why we’re here and what’s the point.

(Not in a sad way, but with a burning curiosity! I really want to know.)

So, I recently pruned my friends page and got rid of a bunch of communities. I hardly ever read fanfiction on LiveJournal anymore; it’s usually either kink memes or AO3. I want to use my LiveJournal as more like a real journal, I think. It’s easy to ignore when I’m so much more active on other websites, though.

And I have many more things to talk about but I’m pretty exhausted right now.

I want to write some articles for the Geekiary, but I don’t know what to write. I don’t know what to geek out about right now. Maybe I could do Alan Wake or Adventure Time…it’s just pretty difficult describing the complexity of my feelings. I think I should go at it like I would an essay: Start with an outline. Bullet-point my thoughts on the subject. Buff it up a little. And then just fill in the blanks.

For some reason, my Kindle erased a bunch of my books. I mean, the files were there on the Kindle’s hard drive when I plugged it into the computer; they just weren’t showing up. Some files work, some don’t; there doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to it, especially since some of them work when I remove the file from the Kindle and then put it back again.

I’m glad I haven’t actually lost anything—the files weren’t deleted, so now I just have the pain of downloading them again. Most of my books were filched from illegal sources. Happily, the ones I did buy still show up. None of the free classic books from Project Gutenberg—a totally legitimate resource—worked either, though.

All the files were .mobi or .azw, compatible with the Kindle Paperwhite. So I don’t think it’s an issue with the extension. I have no idea what happened.

I tested all the files. I used to have over a hundred books (and I wasn’t even close to the limit), and now I only have thirty-nine. :\

I converted some of the .mobi files into PDFs, but that didn’t work either. Although now I have PDF files which I can read on my computer. Nice, but I like the Kindle because I can bring it anywhere.

I downloaded A Song of Ice and Fire again from the internet. Tried to put it on my Kindle. It still doesn’t show up. Seriously, what the heck. This is awful; I LOVE my Kindle, but now it’s randomly making some of my books not appear. That’s bullshit!

Even though I’ve accepted my financial situation and I know that college isn’t the best, greatest, highest form of education ever and that I can learn a great deal on my own through books and websites…I still really want to go to college. I don’t want it for the degree; I don’t want to take an online class; it’s just fun. I liked school. I really liked learning. I liked organizing my papers and taking notes and having my backpack as a constant companion.

(I didn’t like projects—especially group projects—or the enormous anxiety I had towards homework and essays, nor the general sense of not belonging I had when I was around my peers, and don’t get me started on gym class…)

But besides that, school was good. I love to learn. That’s my thing. I’m always interested in knowing more and correcting my current knowledge.

It’s just not feasible right now, though. Maybe if I saved a crazy amount of money, but…the future is filled with uncertainty. It’s great if I follow my current plan, get my driver’s license and a great job and my own apartment by next summer. Then I figured in my off hours I’ll just keep reading and writing and drawing and getting better, and maybe someday down the road I’ll have an actual book and some real good stories to sell…and then I’ll look into publishing. Keeping my day job, of course, until I could survive on my writing.

I feel like it would take years to save up money for tuition, though. And then that’s four years of tuition. And then there’s meal plans and rooms and books and supplies to pay for all those four years. And money for food—snacks and drinks and stuff (I’m not totally sure how a college cafeteria works, but surely they wouldn’t have food at all hours, and I tend to prefer eating when I’m hungry to having timed meals). And a little pocket money for fun. It just keeps adding up. And all the while I will need money for rent, food, utilities, gas, and internet while I live on my own, so it’ll be slow going. It seems impossible to do. How does Shirley from Community go to college—presumably full time—while being a divorced mother with two sons? How? And that’s pretty common, too. I know that’s not unusual.

I just don’t know how to unlock these secrets.

Maybe it’s not as hush-hush as I think. Maybe everyone does just use student loans. But I don’t want to use those, because of mountains of debt (and the fact that I’m not totally sure college wouldn’t be a waste of my time—it would be fine for me, personally, to invest a lot of money in a thing, and if it fails then I’ll just go, “Oh well.” But it would be terrible if it failed and then it’s still kicking my ass years and years and years down the line).

UGH.

Can’t I just be a normal person, walking the halls of a university? Having tests, taking notes, lecture halls…I just really want to do that. But there’s no way I could go to school full-time and work and still have my own place. OK, sacrifice my place. Roommates? Sure, so long as they don’t do drugs and aren’t keen on partying in our room, that’s fine. All right. But what about after college? No work, no place to live. I don’t like those prospects.

Has anyone ever been able to make this work totally by themselves? Can you go to college starting at zero? This is just my fantasy.