Curiosity Compels Me
Jun. 26th, 2008 10:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
maychorianSo, yes, I am continuing my old habit of becoming veryveryvery interested in a certain something for a time and devouring everything I can get my hands on that touches the subject and then getting bored and moving on to something else. This used to bother me, because I figured it was yet another example of my extreme laziness and lack of self-discipline and failure as, well, as a person, basically.
But as I've grown up and gotten a job and moved into my own place and started to accept myself as I am (oh, and gotten some therapy, if you'll remember from past blogs), I've been trying to change that thing called self-talk, where you tell yourself about who you are. Sometimes I did this aloud, "Laura, that was so frickin' STUPID!" I would say to myself. "You're such an idiot. Why do you do this to yourself?" Sometimes I still do this. But I'm trying not to.
Because I figure, after nearly twenty-five years of living on this planet (birthday Saturday!) I should just understand that some things about probably aren't going to change, an I need to work with them instead of against them, and turn them into strengths instead of weaknesses.
So, like, my bouts of obsession. This can be strength. I'm a good researcher! I can find out all sorts of things, following different threads to strange and weird places. And I have the kind of mind that is always trapping this sort of information, and fitting odd things into odd places. This is where some of my best short stories have come--weird things slotting into weirder places, and all of a sudden it's almost kind of cool and making sense.
Like http://maychoria.tripod.com/beauty.html. Where did that come from? I really don't know. I was just in one of those little practice rooms in Founders Hall at TUFW, playing piano, mind wandering, and the story came into my head, fully formed. Same with "How the Prism Got Her Wish"--I woke up one morning, saw the pattern of sunlight and shadow on my wall from the morning sun shining through the leaves outside my window, and the story was just there. I really like it when that happens.
So I think I need to relabel myself. Though I still really do need to finish my projects--like my many half-written fanfics and the novel that's been sitting in my computer with three chapters to go since I was eighteen--my short-term obsessions are not necessarily bad. Curiosity compels me. Sometimes it leads me to very twisted and horrifying places (such as when I listened to the entirety of the "death tape" from the Jonestown massacre, and just recently had a weird desire to read about Marquis de Sade, both of which left me with large amounts of nausea). But I believe that it's all material.
There's so much I want to know! There's so much I want to see and hear and understand! Thank God for the internet. I would never be able to find so much without it.
My latest obsessions? Sailor Moon and Dr. Who. And my brand-new Wii, especially Dr. Mario and DDR. Yes, I expect that they will be different next month.
But as I've grown up and gotten a job and moved into my own place and started to accept myself as I am (oh, and gotten some therapy, if you'll remember from past blogs), I've been trying to change that thing called self-talk, where you tell yourself about who you are. Sometimes I did this aloud, "Laura, that was so frickin' STUPID!" I would say to myself. "You're such an idiot. Why do you do this to yourself?" Sometimes I still do this. But I'm trying not to.
Because I figure, after nearly twenty-five years of living on this planet (birthday Saturday!) I should just understand that some things about probably aren't going to change, an I need to work with them instead of against them, and turn them into strengths instead of weaknesses.
So, like, my bouts of obsession. This can be strength. I'm a good researcher! I can find out all sorts of things, following different threads to strange and weird places. And I have the kind of mind that is always trapping this sort of information, and fitting odd things into odd places. This is where some of my best short stories have come--weird things slotting into weirder places, and all of a sudden it's almost kind of cool and making sense.
Like http://maychoria.tripod.com/beauty.html. Where did that come from? I really don't know. I was just in one of those little practice rooms in Founders Hall at TUFW, playing piano, mind wandering, and the story came into my head, fully formed. Same with "How the Prism Got Her Wish"--I woke up one morning, saw the pattern of sunlight and shadow on my wall from the morning sun shining through the leaves outside my window, and the story was just there. I really like it when that happens.
So I think I need to relabel myself. Though I still really do need to finish my projects--like my many half-written fanfics and the novel that's been sitting in my computer with three chapters to go since I was eighteen--my short-term obsessions are not necessarily bad. Curiosity compels me. Sometimes it leads me to very twisted and horrifying places (such as when I listened to the entirety of the "death tape" from the Jonestown massacre, and just recently had a weird desire to read about Marquis de Sade, both of which left me with large amounts of nausea). But I believe that it's all material.
There's so much I want to know! There's so much I want to see and hear and understand! Thank God for the internet. I would never be able to find so much without it.
My latest obsessions? Sailor Moon and Dr. Who. And my brand-new Wii, especially Dr. Mario and DDR. Yes, I expect that they will be different next month.
