15 Jul 2018, 10:16 pm
Hello there,
I'm all new here, but this looks like a place for me :3
And, here I am, a stranger on the internet in need to rant to other strangers on the internet because my head is full of things that I need to say, and my last remaining good friend just left the country, and also I'm a stupid idiot who didn't contact my other friends in forever, so I wouldn't want to bother them with my current sadness right now... So I'm brain-dumping here, thanks to whoever is reading it, and sorry....
I feel like something really amazing and valuable just ended, and I didn't fully enjoy it.
I'm sad. And lonely. Very lonely. All external parameters considered, my life is what I always wanted it to be - I'm doing my PhD, I have every freedom to do whatever I want, be it research or free time. My research is exactly what I used to wish for, one of the last few remaining true "white spots on the map", so to speak. I live on an awesome little island, the beach is 40 minutes away by bike, and the non-dirty beach maybe 3 hours by train, there are mountains to hike on and rivers to trace. I have no financial problems either. Small room, good computer, all I need.
And yet, I feel empty. Whenever I try to fall asleep, I'm kept awake by the list of things I thought I would have done till now. So many things I love and would like to become really good at, and yet - either no progress or steps back during the last years. I start a thing, learn the basics, then something happens and I drop it "just for a week / month / year / wait why is it 2018 already?"). It's like I'm constantly waiting for the future which is going to be awesome, and yet not putting in the work that's necessary to get there. Four years ago, I thought "Oh, in four years I'll probably have my PhD and have discovered some awesome things and be a good scientist and have learned so much stuff!", and yet, I've made so little progress. I mean, it's not nothing, but four years? And with respect to all my hobbies, my skills are worse now than four years ago. I think I became a bit of a boring person, too - for periods of time, I obsess over some piece of research (fun fact, however: obsessing tends to be counterproductive to getting actual results), and when that fails, I fall into spirals of wasting time on the internet.
So much time wasted. When my motivation drops, and I start feeling empty and lonely, my go-to reaction is to go to youtube or reddit or watch anime and basically remove myself from reality. I stop thinking about my own life, get invested in whatever I watch - only that, when I reemerge ever so briefly, I just feel the emptiness more. So I go back into internet nonexistence as quickly as I can. This whole thing is closely related to my depression, too, I think... During my undergrad, I had pretty severe depression, and at the time would just binge-watch TV series all day, and then I found 9gag - not exaggerating, I must have spent several entire months on there, doing nothing else. Don't ask me how the hell I graduated XD I cut that one off a few years ago, luckily, and I'm never going back. Ever. The underlying problem, however, remains - checking out of reality is just so much more convenient than living my own life. Once, I was in Japan, and decided I didn't want to waste my time there - and completely avoided the internet for a few months (except looking up information for what I was planning to do in real life). That was good! I think I was a better person during that time. And I collected a lot of valuable memories. Invaluable, in fact... But, sure enough, I went back home and fell into old loops and didn't make it out again ever since.
Which leads me to the last few years of PhD "work". I lost so, so much time through my internet addiction. Sometimes put a restriction on it, but the cravings always got the better of me. Few weeks back, I was sick, bingewatched stuff while in bed, and that was similar enough to old depression habits that it triggered a whole new round of depression -.- All that during valuable time here 
The reason I say it's so valuable is, in addition to what I said before (just amazing work conditions), my advisor. I consider him a very good and important friend. He's just wonderful. I greatly enjoy our scientific discussions, and he understands me better than anyone else. Better than I understand myself, in fact 
(Sometimes, when there's other people present, he translates what I say into normal-people-speak, it's the best thing ever ^^) He explains things so well and has infinite patience (I used to have this giant anxiety of writing a paper - like, communicating with other people about stuff I'm supposed to know well, the horror! He sat with me and we worked through what I wrote for literally months, until I got some confidence in my own writing, and we published a number of papers together... and thanks to his advice, there wasn't a single big revision to be done. Those are only a few of the reasons I appreciate him so much.
And he just left. Has a year off, he'll be traveling (totally deserves it), I'm on my own trying to write my thesis. When he comes back, either I'll be pretty much done, or even more depressed about not making progress. We'll be different people. In that sense, this beautiful time that is my PhD process just ended. And yet, I feel like I never fully enjoyed it. Like I was always holding out for a better moment, when I know more and we can work together better. I was waiting for the time when I'm good enough that he doesn't need to drag me after him, that I actually can contribute. It didn't come, not really. I found a few things, but not nearly as much as I'd like. There are still so many things I don't know, I didn't read, I didn't write. I'm always boring and depressed and bringing my problems to his doorstep, and he listens and helps me solve them. I wish I'd been a better friend in return, and a better student. I've always felt, deep down, that the two of us could move the world. And at the same time, I've always thought, "not yet". I regret that so much right now. Just lying in bed crying my eyes out.
I don't want this anymore. I don't want to waste my life like this. I don't want to disappear into the internet again. I want to meet him again, and be better, be ready, be. Have hobbies, graduate, not drag other people down. Have friends. But damn, I'm doing it again, am I not. "When we meet again". Another arbitrary future point. That's no good. No waiting this time. I want to improve a little, right now, today. And then again, and again. Always now. I gotta make sure I remember this pain I'm feeling right now. It pushes me to be me. Maybe I'll start a small blog to track my progress and collect what I've learned. I do have this list of things [s]I thought I'd have done by now[\s] goals. Things I want to do, some of which scare me. I put them up on a whiteboard earlier this semester, but somehow that doesn't work. Need another format. Somehow, I'd like people to be able to see it (which is kind of a first for me), which is why I'm thinking blog. There, the crying stopped. This thought of improving eases the pain. Gotta remember that, as well. Don't focus on the results in the distant future. Focus on a small step right now. I know I'm able to do these things, I've done them before. Usually just when I really need to. But, I do need to. I only have this one life. I only get this day once. It's a sad day, but still a day, with all the potential those come with.
Consider this a commitment. No more avoidance. From here on out, I'm going to live as well as I can.
16 Jul 2018, 12:31 pm
28 Jul 2018, 4:03 am
28 Jul 2018, 4:13 am
Only a few gifted students can keep up their hobbies while seriously involved in studies. It paid off for me that I ended up getting a job in my special interest.
I remember the pattern very well. At the beginning of the semester you could meet all sorts of people at the clubs in the University I went to. And as the school year progressed people would disappear, until there was just a few regulars at the end of the semester.
