learning

[Linzoy]

I tried to read a discussion about ufo's a few minutes ago and I got bored after the first paragraph. Maybe I've lost interest in UFOs and my curiosity is being directed into something else, but what? My life hasn't changed. I used to love reading about aliens, alternate universes, and kabala, and lots of other vague things. I’ve always known it’s a waste of my time but I used to enjoy it. Now I just don't care. I'm wondering if it's a useless phase I've grown out of or if I'm destroying an important part of my personality. I think people only have a certain capacity for every emotion. I can be happy, but I've never felt overjoyed about anything. I've seen people overjoyed but it looks weird to me. I don’t think I have the capacity. But I think I also have a small capacity for anger, which is good. I think people can only be so curious about life and only to a certain point. By the time I'm 30 I'll settle into some kind of routine and I won't care about anything that doesn't relate to be directly.

Anyway, how curious do you think you are? Do you care about "deep" questions and stuff? Do you ever wish you where more curious, or do you wish you could stop wanting to know more things?

I've never cared about school. I wish I could make myself care. I think that has more to do with not wanting to be ordered around. I've never been rebellious, but I just sit and stare out the window. I'm not lazy, I force myself to work, but it's hate anything someone else told me to do. I think I'm just spoiled. My parents never made me do chores... not once.

[cyberen]

I find thinking about deep things, things that are still a mystery, to be refreshing when not worried about the insignificant tedium of modern life.

[Tom Bosley]

ok that's long somebody summarize it.

[Vile]

I think I can only really think about those kinds of things when I'm talking about it with some one else. It doesn't matter who, hell, they could be asleep, but I need to say it out loud before it "clicks".

Same with TV shows on the subject. If something on UFOs is on, I'll call zach and make him watch it with me. I'd still watch it if he wasn't home, but I don't think I'd get as much out of it.

[Rory Storm]

ok that's long somebody summarize it.

Cock.

[Tom Bosley]

woman

[SLUM WIZZARD]

Yeah, rory summed that up pretty damn well.

//ontopic: I get that alot too, I'll be enthusiastic about learning more about something, but then later on it just...dies. Kinda like how it was with me and building robots. I just kinda...stopped. I still want to be interested, because I never accomplished my goals, but I just can't get into it like I used to. It's a weird feeling, and it pisses me off too, because I could have actually accomplished my goal if I had just had a 20 dollar bill at the right time and place. Twice. The capacity for certain feelings thing seems correct too, because I can never get overly scared. Probably because I'm just too careless to ponder the horrible consequences of whatever I'm doing that's dangerous, but that's anather thing.

[Davey Rootbeer]

I've found that, most of the time, i have an attention span of a lightbulb.

the only way i can really CONCENTRATE on something is when it's of REAL interest to me: that interest may change in two months, two weeks, heck, two seconds. either that, or i'm challanged and wish to prove a point.

My inner voice sounds remarkably like that Charles guy from M*A*S*H.


I..I seem to have forgotten my point.

Oh well, i'm sure it was a good one.

[robot]

i don't understand this whole reality concept anymore. i don't know what there is to care about when you're just floating in space.

things are happier that way.

[Falsafah]

The thirst for knowledge. Curiousity makes one learn alot but then, without self-control, curiousity can make a person become obsessed.

Anyway, on the topic about perseverance and goal-setting...
I entered a music competition two years ago. I had to borrow a family member's computer to make my music and I didn't even have my own keyboard. It was pathetic. I almost gave up because I thought it was impossible to be running back and forth my relative's place to get things done - and I used up alot of my transport fare. I almost gave up when personal problems started surfacing, keeping me at bay from completing my music. I got so deep into depression that I just didn't want to do anything anymore. For a person like me, I hate to leave things unfinished so I did what I had to do - I completed my song and sent it over to the United Kingdom (where the competition was based). It costed $40 for postage. I was like...ughh...oh...whatever....

Many months later, they results came out in a magazine called Future Music. I didn't know it until a friend e-mailed me. He told me that the song received good reviews and was in the magazine charts. I bought the magazine and I was surprised to see the number of competitors from all over the world - Japan, Mexico, Netherlands...just everywhere. It was amazing. They were so many talented musicians. I thought I was crap! I honestly thought the producers were going to laugh at me.

I did not win the competition but then another friend told me that my song was all over the place. I thought it was funny. I had that ticklish feeling in my heart. Though I didn't win the competition, I felt like a winner. I was happy because I did what I set to do. And it was the first time I achieved something in my life.

Honestly, while I was doing that remix, I didn't really enjoy it. It was tedious. Time-consuming. Painful. I kept forcing myself to finish it. I'm glad I did. What kept me going was the passion I had for music. And it's true what they say that a beautiful and meaningful life is a life driven by passion and pure curiousity.

Moderating and keeping the board alive is a form of passion ( um, i think). Being here is a form of passion. Being here also means we care about stuff...don't we?

[MST3Kakalina]

i used to write all the time. it was insane. i would just put my pencil or pen to paper and i'd create stuff. i never had the discipline to finish anything, true, but i would always have the energy to start the first few pages of a story.

now, though, i can't even start. i don't know what to blame. it's like my imagination died, and it's really sad. what's worse is that i'm a creative writing major.

[Ravenous Monkey]

I think the right kind of motivation is key to continue learning and pursuing something. It can't be too much of an external thing, as in being forced to do something for someone else, I guess school falls into that. But you shouldn't force yourself either.

Just knowing what you like and being honest with yourself and having fun is helpful.

I guess so many of us feel dissatisfied with our lack of commitment to certain concepts and fields because we are still young. Eventually we'll find something we love to pursue, as long as we keep looking.


I think I try to follow Iodine's way nowaday's. Happiness is the new goal for me, not the right answer to things. I think that relates to what robot said.

[Linzoy]

I think our society is too goal orientated. You have to enjoy the process of reaching that goal. I think no matter how much you want to get to the top of a mountain, you really have to enjoy hiking. If you don't you'll just take a long time and always need brakes, even if you're in good shape and you really want to see the top. I think people have to feel good about every step. That's probably the issue I have with school, I want good grades more than I want to learn the material. So I actually have to care less about what I'm supposed to care about. People think I'm not thinking about the future so I just goof off, but it's the opposite problem, I'm so fixated on the future I get paralized with fear and I don't want to do anything. I don't want to make a mistake.

For me happiness and the right answer to things aren't different goals. I can't be happy about thinking the wrong way.

[Lord Koopa]

Sometimes, there are goals you may want to achieve that come at a price that is not enjoyable.

[MST3Kakalina]

I think our society is too goal orientated. You have to enjoy the process of reaching that goal. I think no matter how much you want to get to the top of a mountain, you really have to enjoy hiking. If you don't you'll just take a long time and always need brakes, even if you're in good shape and you really want to see the top. I think people have to feel good about every step. That's probably the issue I have with school, I want good grades more than I want to learn the material. So I actually have to care less about what I'm supposed to care about. People think I'm not thinking about the future so I just goof off, but it's the opposite problem, I'm so fixated on the future I get paralized with fear and I don't want to do anything. I don't want to make a mistake.

For me happiness and the right answer to things aren't different goals. I can't be happy about thinking the wrong way.
people less incompetent than yourself (and myself, for that matter) have made it through life without suffering any major crises.


that's what i tell myself when i get overwhelmed about the future.

[Rory Storm]

i used to write all the time. it was insane. i would just put my pencil or pen to paper and i'd create stuff. i never had the discipline to finish anything, true, but i would always have the energy to start the first few pages of a story.

now, though, i can't even start. i don't know what to blame. it's like my imagination died, and it's really sad. what's worse is that i'm a creative writing major.
I go through times like that with my drawing. I can usually sit for hours drawing, hours that, at times, can go well into the night and to the morning. And there are other times, rare, sometimes week long, periods of feeling dried out. And durning those times I feel like a machine with just ONE gear that will not turn, thus causing all of the other gears not to turn...and it just clicks in place until something, I don't know what, sets it loose and I start up again. It's odd, really it is. It's like I am looking for some sort of action...or excitment. Other times I have all of these ideas...I just can't get them out, write them down, I feel to lazy...and they are forgotten, pushed to the back parts of my memory...and then they resurface sometimes.

[MST3Kakalina]

part of the problem is, and i realized this sometime in the 8th grade, is that my creative ideas are very instantaneous and visual. instead of thinking "oh, wouldn't it be cool if there was a character X that was like A, B, and C, and O,P, and Q happened to him?" i see something in my head--a pair of feet pedaling a bicycle, or an assassin with twin scythes waiting in a dark office for her next victim--that would look cool on film or in a picture, but would be very awkward with words and very lacking in any sort of story. the film idea is reinforced by the fact that music will often make those pictures pop out, and i think "wow, if that were in a movie, that'd be a perfect song for that part of the movie."

i think that's why i like Walden and Catcher in the Rye so much. there's not really anything like a plot or a point. it's just expressing ideas and personality in very good writing.

[Linzoy]

That's usually how I get my ideas, but I can usually develop them into something more complicated. The biggest hinderance to my writing is that I'm afraid no one will like it.

I like catcher in the rye, but I like books better when they go somewhere.

I never get normal ideas, so I don't want to write anything down. It's impossible for me to write a story that doesn't involve some sort of disaster, and the more depressed I am the better my drawings turn out. I wrote a picture book when I was 7 called the stormy day in the desert. I was very proud of it and worked on it for months. The main character is a camel because he appears on every page. First it rains, I describe how all the animals have to run around looking for shelter for hours. Finally when it stops raining there's an earthquake, a meteor shower, lots of lightning, and a volcano. "Out came a black, black, black, black, blacker than black, black, black, black, cloud. Black was the only color I mentioned in print in the whole book, even though the illustrations where very colorful. All the animals forget what happens after the volcano but they end up in the jungle. The camel gets eaten by a tiger. The lizard starts whining about how cold it is. On the back cover I wrote in huge red and black letters: The story's over, GO AWAY! This seems weird to me now because I was an extremely quiet 7 year old, I hardly ever spoke above a terrified whisper. But I remember thinking my back cover was hilarious. Anyways... times where different back then. I wrote that story for school and they didn't even ask me if I was depressed or anything. If I wrote something like that today I'm sure I'd be forced to read a bunch of stupid pamphlets or something.

[Falsafah]

Linzoy, I would love to read some of your stuff. You've read tons of mine and I never got a chance to read yours...

[Ravenous Monkey]

I think it is best to produce art for yourself, makes it much easier and fun too. Eventually if one want's they can share it with others.

Also, I would think that not being able to create on command is associated with performance anxiety.

[Linzoy]

I try to make art for myself but it's difficult.

[Shiv]

Man, I just think I'm so lucky, but then again, it's process that's gotten me to wear I am... trial an error you know?

My mam never made me stick to anything when I was a kid. She always had me doing something though. Ballet, tap dancing, gymnastics, tae kwon do... etc. The first thing I got into because I wanted to was horse riding, and it was the first thing I really stuck with, because, god damn it, I love horse riding. But there's no where to go riding anymore :(

So when I was in high school, I was able to join all these extra curricular thingamies and I ended up being in ECO club (environmental youth club thingie that involved a lot of hiking and adventure sports...) Gaelic football, played flute in the orchestra, played guitar in a traditional Irish band thingy, plus I took lessons for a cuple of years, and a bunch of stuff I don't remember O.O I never understood how anyone would get so caught up with just one thing that they could really get something out of it because I was also very very into science, particularly physics, art, computers, music (obviously, I play four instruments and love to sing), dancing, philosphy, I used to write at least 2 poems a day, making up characters and sometimes role playing.

I ramble, but basically I know so many people who just wanna do nothing all the time and I don't understand it 'cause I wanna do everything. (ot always, no, but in general). In the end I decided on art, because I get all tingly inside when I see really beautiful art, and computers because I can sit at them for hours on end without getting bored and I came up with computer animation, yay! I don't do nearly as much as I used to, I don't really even play guitar anymore, but I think that's because I feel fullfilled, I feel I'm doing something worth while adn that I really want to do, I'm going somewhere rather than just sticking it out till the end cause I have to like with school.

Yup, I think I'm pretty freakin lucky. I know everyone doesn't find something they love as easily, but it's out there. And if you can't obsess over a career, get a boring job and obsess over a hobby, or a person, or animals, or TV or whatever makes you happy ^_^