I finished my finals
with flying colors today. One of my professors tactfully (not so loud as to insult everyone else in the class) asked "Easy?", since I've been the first one to turn in every one of his tests this semester. I just
shrugged. I lamented the other day to a friend that the only skill I have in this world is taking tests, and he seemed put off that I would be complaining, saying he wished he could be good at tests, because they're so stressful for everyone else. I guess he missed the point (probably because he actually possesses social and artistic skills, and does not think of them as such). Taking tests is not a rewarding experience. Sure, there's a thrill at knowing I'm going to ace it, and that
I'm faster and smarter and "better" than everyone else around me... but the latter fizzles out as I turn around and
empathize with the poor saps, completely disappearing when someone inevitably looks up at me and hates me; and the former dries up in a matter of hours, because, even though I was trained by my dear sweet mama from a young age to think the contrary, tests and grades don't really mean shit.
In fact, by any measure of happiness, they mean less than shit. I can't make friends within my department, because other students either perceive me as arrogant or someone they can use to teach them all the test material the night before the test, and I perceive myself as so abnormal and disliked and disrespected that I no longer make any effort to talk to them in the first place. It's a bad case of math brain, which causes me to over-analyze social situations to the point where I'm either boring to be around, so self-critical that I run away, or, if I get the feeling someone actually enjoys my company, I cling to them until they get sick of me.
I can't even survive in anonymous communities like this one, because I project these (admittedly baseless and foolish) opinions of myself onto people that don't exist, and use the fact that "no one likes my writing" to prevent myself from writing anything, eliminating the possibility of positive feedback and the internal destruction of the perceived tacit criticism. Of the hundreds of times I've visited this site since my last write-up, I've started some tens of write-ups and thirties of daylogs, but only when I become so full of self-deprecation that I completely stop caring about what other people think about me entirely (eg, now) do I have the balls to finish what I start. Problem is, of course, that not caring what other people think, I engage in the worst form of writing, a great steaming pile of mindless self-indulgence, whining about problems I know the solutions to but am too stubborn to admit... and so the next time I think of writing something, I probably won't even log in, fearful of the apocalyptic Ack!, and the cold, hard quantification of how many people think I suck.
So that's the bad news.
The even worse news is, this isn't even my first account on the site. I gave up on my first one long ago, but soon found myself crawling back. If you tried, you could find out what I used to be... I'm fundamentally not a writer, and not really capable of any stylistic change. But you probably have better things to do.
The good news is, having expressed myself, I feel slightly better, and nagging self-loathing will no longer prevent me from reading my book. And tomorrow, I'll wake up and ride my bike and realize life is beautiful. Funny how neurotransmitters work, ain't it?
God, what a fucking loony bin you've created here.