The problem of motivation, I have discovered, is almost wholly emotional. One wants to, or does not want to, work, because of a complex mix of emotions underneath. This is why I have trouble doing anything before the deadline, and why I constantly long for midnight all the day these days. I get up, with a single though, a single drive, a single motive: to go back to bed and curl up under my blanket, away from the world.
I have experienced it at a number of points in the past, though seldom with this much normalcy. I occasionally do stuff that I like, reading and watching and writing, but the threads that bind me to anything are fragile. My recklessness surfaces in every aspect of my life and if I was to get fired at this point, I would be immensely relieved. Ambition and drive seem like buzzwords; I have trouble finding the basic motivation to sustain life and to carry out its normal functions. I wish I was such a self-interested person as people think I am, for in that case I would actually do things in my favour. As it is, I constantly act against my self-interest and not in a driven, nihilistic way, just out of being stupidly emotional.
I have realized that not having any emotions is also a state of emotion and if it strongly impacts you, then it is a problematic emotional state of mind. If I was truly as nihilist as I believed, I would actually really stop caring about everything and not feel this dull throbbing void.
I think I just suck at handling stress, particularly at this point in time, and there are two very strong sources of stress: my job, and my 14(I think) applications. I need to tell myself that both are fine and whatever happens will be fine and life is above and beyond all this crap. If I enjoy eating a handful of cashew nuts with my coffee while lounging in the winter sun, that is enough for me and I honestly do not need any other source of joy.
Talking to people helps at times, particularly if they are not family, because then I am forced to engage like normal human beings. The relief, however, is temporary and disappears as soon as the conversation ends. Recently I have started realizing that with my story building talents, I create palaces from pebbles and hide away from the real life in their corridors. Being in touch with real life no longer has any attraction for me, so that is fine, but ultimately all my joys and sorrows are in my head and nowhere else. If I long and pine for something, it usually isn't anywhere; when I mourn something, it often never was there in first place. The jolts of reality leave me very confused at points, and pragmatism seems to be the only solution; it is what it is, and not particularly important at that.
My perception is always, always, always eons away from anyone else's perception.
Loneliness is a real and tangible evil, but there is no point complaining about anything, and who would hear me? My only problem is that the life instinct in me, though interesting in a theoretical way and seductive from afar, is very very fragile and easily gets affected by everything and everyone. The flame can be mildly and briefly brilliant, but it is all the more delicate and hard to maintain. I guess beauty always tends to be transient and fragile, for symmetry requires a lot of things to go harmoniously together, and a lot of careful thought, but it is hard and impractical to maintain. I guess I can console myself with the thought that I am a chandelier and not a lantern for a coal mine, and such is my lot, but I wish I was pretty at least, as a chandelier ought to be.
I guess I am just really stressed about my applications. The poor daftar walay are nice and of little consequence, till the day they actually kick me out. I did pour my broken heart and my evil soul in these applications and now I am waiting(in addition to running after my recommenders) and checking gradcafe which is a source of useless stress. At this point all options look equally crap to me and I am rather fond of my hiding place with a blanket but I guess one has to do new things in life. People are getting calls for interviews and I really don't want to talk to anyone, they should rather reject me outright. It does not rankle and it will not rankle. The whole process takes up a lot of time, effort and money and since I do everything independently, I'm not sure what I could have done wrong again, although I'm dead sure something is amiss. Something has to be amiss. So I guess I focused too much on robustness and interpretability and not on NLP and definitely not on general ML and did not tailor my app to each faculty that I mentioned and then I talked about too many things, as I am apt to do. There was no personal touch in my statement, and my letters are of course going to be lukewarm, and then whatever work I have done is trash, pure and simple. And of course they know that I do not have the energy and the zest that is required for graduate school but then I never ever had it. Mostly my applications will not get read at all, as I do not have enough publications at respectable venues and then of course I ignored the TOEFL.
There are a thousand things that can go wrong, and in my case something critical inevitably does. Today I am probably going to get a dressing down in a meeting at work, but let's be stoic about it. My cognitive functioning is seriously, seriously impaired- I don't know if it will ever recovered- and while it is hard for people to discern, I know how many silly mistakes I make all the time. For a change, I have stopped reprimanding myself over it. What I need is a vacation and a stack of good literature and an infinite supply of lemonade.
I just noticed that I changed my track from need eternal sleep to need a vacation. Ah well. Life surfaces at strange moments.
I think that empirically speaking, it would be a bit surprising if I got 'sorry to inform you' from all 14 places. One or two will probably relent. Not saying it out of secret hopes, but just on the basis of objective facts. I remember someone saying back in 2017 that she got in 1/10, and I wish I had that kind of sense in the applying process.
I have to confess I rather like NLP. It does not even require maths, which is beyond my ability at this point. And I find the discussion around someone's compensation at A around working on multi armed bandits very charming, and if I made that kind of money I'd take an absolute vacation a month a year in Europe. But then I'd have to work hard, and I don't want that do I? Or even, can I?
No ambition, no drive, and no aim. I am fine this way, I think.
How does one preserve the life instinct, when it is this delicate? A question for a learned person. Only if I knew one.
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