Eras/Phases: Internal Confusion

My resolutions spirraling

Every year, my priorities astound me. With the year ending, it is only natural to reassess everything I have ever done. Not limited to 2023. In January I was struck with ambition. Let me tell you, it felt unfamiliar.

Phase 1- Ambition. For as long as I have known myself (not as long as you would think), I have hated how lethargic my life felt. I would always pack my day with work but none of these activities were something long-term. It would usually be an event that I was preparing for, or some birthday I wanted to extravagantly celebrate, or a vacation that I was awaiting but never anything that would require a long-term commitment (I will overshare about my commitment issues later). Suddenly in January, when I was slogging and passionately hating on my law internship, I started Critically Concerned. Let me tell you, spite is a great motivator.

I was convinced that spite would run out of fuel soon. This newsletter would be maintained only for 3 months max. Almost a year has passed and I am still shamelessly oversharing here. Spite, loneliness and ambition are the recipe for sometimes purposeless drive.

Phase 2- For a person who fell in love every other day, mid-year I was struggling to even fake interest. The concern wasn’t just in the romantic area but in any aspect of life. I didn’t want to meet my friends, I didn’t want to talk to new people or visit anything new. There was such a mundane energy and I tried everything to break out of it. I went to my school, I met friends whom I would watch Animal for and went to one too many events. It takes so much energy to be yourself when everything seems so foreign. I felt displaced and lonely but could not pin point what had changed. While the phase did slowly fade away, it was jarring. My entire world knew me as something that I could barely even imagine myself being. In comparison to everything around, I also hated myself for worrying about something so superficial. Naive problems.

Phase 3- As I beat myself for being so down about dumb things, I created dumber problems. Lets worry about social media accidents because we are helpless in every other regard. Reading and seeing the world just failing and the most that I could do was raise awareness, I knew I was a waste. I had to be right? I am studying law and trying to know everything there was but to do what? amplification of the daily existential crisis mixed with youthful helplessness.

With the need to come up with a resolution and tie in my future to my present, I feel extremely helpless. So many things in the world are barely recognised or valued and yet they are extremely crucial to the working of society. Every day I read about journalists sacrificing their lives for reporting and/or being wrung out by the system for reporting what pays. Education institutions are becoming corporate machines shelling out people who can fit the system and be exploited. Teachers are required to serve syllabus and not educate.

As it can be seen my 2024 is going the same as 2023. Tell me where did your new year/ resolution spiral lead you to?