Turning 30?! VLOG: aging & finding my way
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- Опубликовано: 12 окт 2024
- Something a little different today. I wanted to take some time to talk about my internal struggle of late, brought on my a specific birthday that I gave perhaps too much meaning to.
Es freut mich zu hören, dass du Deutsch kannst. And really comforting to know I'm not alone in my experiences. I'm 31 myself. I put in enough effort to get straight A's in grade school, but I really didn't care. I only worked at it so I could get parental rewards for my report cards. I was always more interested in exploring philosophy through art, and when my mom pressed me to get into psychology (because she watched way too much Dr. Phil) it seemed on the surface to be the kind of opportunity that would allow me to pursue that while making money. What they never tell you in high school or even in most of undergrad is that psychology is mostly paperwork to cover your rear against frivolous lawsuits and to make bureaucratic benefits programs satisfied that they're not wasting money. It's really only in the last few years, because of my independent reading about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, that I've been able to admit to myself that what I really like is learning languages and history, teaching those things to others, and building stories with it; and that I need to do the things that are fulfilling to me personally.
It's not easy. Everybody--and I mean everybody, of all political and religious or irreligious stripes--seems like they're only interested in creating carbon copies of themselves. But the thing I've realized is that society has to do that to keep itself from falling, and you just have exist in that illogical tension between the grid that society places you in and the absolute freedom of admitting to yourself that the grid is an illusion and that only your experience is real. Too much individualism tears away the community that humans need by nature, and too much collectivism alienates individuals from their diverse needs. The solution isn't to accept one extreme over the other, but to balance both.
Congrats on turning to 30 bro. I'm 35 myself. It sucks! hahahaha I still feel gipped. No one gave me the manual to adult, so im writing the book as I go along. But dont worry, I think we all have the feeling of what we want to accomplish by the time we hit this age, but life does what it wants to do and you learn to just roll with it in the end. The important thing is you're alive, you've got an amazing woman beside you, you have managed to accuire some amazing loot and you get to share these things with people now, that when you were younger we would never have been able to do. Keep going bud. You're doing a great job!
Thank you, this was a fantastic comment to start my day with. I'm feeling very positive now with everything that is moving along in my life, and looking back at how even the most negative elements of my past are important parts of how my positive future will come to be. I hope everything is going well with you too. As an aside; I always pegged you as late 20s! haha
HAHAHAHA I wish I was still in my 20's bro. That would be awesome. To know what I know now, at that age. I would do things very differently, but that said, I wouldnt be the person I am now. So no regrets. And as you said, the negatives really turn out to be the most important parts of your life, because it's when things like that happen, that you learn. Really learn. And you can pass on that knowledge to others. And then you can move forward from there. Onward and Forward. That's the only way to go. Time wont stop for us, we got to flow and move with it as best we can. :D
I felt very similarly at age 30. I feel like that was my "mid life crisis". Like you I felt like I hadn't accomplished my goals, so I tried a number of things. I got more serious about my web development skills. I got my friends together to try to make a video game which was fun. In the end I abandoned that and got what I call an "adult" job in web development. This was a good learning experience, and I think it pushed me a lot as a person. I'm currently working on getting my N2 and N1 Japanese certs, trying to get my business to be sustainable, and working on a passion of mine which is to translating video games. I needed to let go of some things, such as illustrating, which I'd started to have a difficult relationship with. In retrospect, I think that was the right decision, but I was "stuck" on that for a very long time. I wish you the best of luck with your journey.
Thank you. I see a lot of similarities with what you went through, and I'm glad you are doing what is bet for you, and moving forward with more emotional clarity and a better sense of self. By the way, aren't you eternally 29? What's this over 30 crap! haha
Well, the big 0 birthdays always bring introspection. We're rarely where we want to be. And we focus on what we didn't do instead of what we did do. Especially if the things we accomplished weren't in the game plan. And yet 10 years down the line you may look back and think that you still had time to achieve the things you wanted. For me 30 was 21 years ago. Now looking back I know I wasted time feeling bad about my lack of achievement and that crippled me because I let it. Now at 51 I wonder if at 60 I'll look back and think "why didn't I do this or that back then when I was still "young". But taking stock of your life is not a bad thing. It's what motivates you to move ahead. Just remember to every once in a while, stop and breathe. A great man once said: "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Chaka, chakaaaaa.
And Happy Birthday!
Thank you! And thank you for the encouraging words.
Happy birthday buddy!
Happy birthday! I loved your channel before but this video makes me love it more. I think there's a lot of us who have these sort of unrealistic goals that we don't reach because life isn't the way we thought it would be. I don't know if this is what you were talking about but I had to distance myself from my family in large part because of their religion and their inability to accept or understand my atheism. I can relate to how much it sucks when other people can't understand what your priorities and passions are. Don't let a number get you down, it's clear you've accomplished a lot! Also you are not out of shape, you look great, lol.
I just made a post that partly dealt with me being an atheist and cutting all ties from people I used to call 'family' because they think I'm evil.
When I meet another atheist, its like a space-cadet finding like-minded life in the dangerous universe or like finding a fellow survivor in a zombie apocalypse.
Or like finding an intelligent being in a world filled with idiots.
Relating to life-goals and what society expects from us, people need to just be and stop killing themselves with expectations.
Everyone has insecurities with how they see their life and they feel like they're the only one.
Appreciate the video, I can relate to this on so many levels. I just turned 36 myself..btw Happy Birthday!... I definitely had this idea of where I would be at this age, the income, the big house etc.. but life truly has its own plan for you and you will learn to ride its waves.. I too have a surface relationship with my family and am coming to grips with outside of my wife that I do not have many friendship/relationships. Luckily our spouses are the compasses we need to help give us guidance when we tend to veer off the path and that time is what we make of it. Cheers!
Thank you for sharing! Yeah, I think I'm going through a much needed time for change and defining relationships so I can move forward. I'm looking forward to tackling life with a renewed vision and the love and support of my wife.
When is your next video? :D Keep it up!
Going to a huge annual library book sale today, so a video will be up about that tonight or tomorrow, a video game review Wed, and a new laserdisc video fri!
I've been wanting to respond to this video since you posted it.
The reason I've been reluctant to post my thoughts is because I'm scared it would come off as negative or be a hindrance to something you're doing (if you were to take what I say to heart in a certain way or in the wrong way).
So just know what I say is not negative or meant to be in any way (because to most people it might seem that way).
(Like my username, for example: 'Fuk You' is not meant to be angry, mean, or antagonistic except to Google, who wanted me to combine my Google account with my RUclips account, as a means to spy on everyone's browsing history through their identity. So when it asked my name I wrote that, and somehow no one had that name before me, so it stuck.)
When I share myself with most people around me, they say I'm pessimistic or bitter/angry, all because my views go against theirs.
I'm an atheist (which simply means 'without the belief in a god').
Religious people think it means I'm pure evil (worse than terrorists and child molesters according to their beliefs).
They even think its a religion (when its just the opposite).
I do appreciate when I find others that are atheist just because its like finding another survivor in a zombie-infested world.
(I didn't even plan on mentioning religion in this post, but its a big reason why I'm seen negatively in people's eyes. I live in the South of the United States, which is just 'red state' territory. It furthers my isolation from people around me because I have to keep it a secret so they don't start attacking my home. My next door neighbors, that have been near me my whole life, just recently moved after I revealed to them I was an atheist. The wife in that family teaches religion to children. I know they were genuinely afraid of me after we had a long conversation, that I thought was nice and explanatory, but they can't fathom what I was saying and where I'm coming from).
Back to the topic of the video...
I just turned 31 in May.
I feel the same way as you do relating to 30 being like the cutoff mark.
I wanted to be an actor, rise in the ranks, become a director, and work in that industry, the business of what I love: movies/storytelling.
I saw the 20s as the last decade of youth in one's life and that I should have embedded myself in the acting industry by then.
Hollywood moved south due to tax incentives at just the right time that I was in college for acting.
I had always planned to move to Hollywood but it came to me.
Wanted to be an actor since I was about 4 years old after seeing Back To The Future Part II and my mother revealed that you can actually do that, those are actors, and you can do that for a living.
When growing up in school, I saw my profession in computers, making games, but in high school, you realize that its programming (a whole lot of work) and not actually 'creating' in terms of storytelling.
I had a revelation that I was going to be an actor.
As a kid, it felt like a pipe-dream, but a few years after I realized that I won't be going to some heaven where I can live out my real life, I thought, "I should do what I love and go for it. I'm going to be an actor like I've always wanted deep down inside."
So I did.
I never got deep into the industry and never got an agent (though not from lack of trying), but I did go to college for it, did a few things and learned a lot about it all and what I'm capable of.
As I'm dealing with "the real world" of working for money and paying rent, just trying to stay afloat, while planning to get an agent and follow that course of "being a professional actor", I'm panicking because I'm getting up there in my 20s and it looks more and more hopeless.
Not just the fact that I wasn't making progress in that business, but with what I was finding out about it.
It's a dark and shady business.
It's not what anyone thinks it is or what I wanted it to be.
It can be and it is in certain facets when you get the right people working together who aren't exploitative assholes.
But it is strictly business.
I watch artists I look up to struggling to get credit or even work.
I find out that nobody's happy in it.
And I've seen and experienced the inside of it, learned from others' journeys as well.
But for me, acting was just a fun means to an end.
I wanted to create stories ultimately (write and direct).
In my mind, I knew that I didn't need to act, that I didn't have to follow this plan, this career, but there's this horrible burden weighing down because of society constantly there to whisper that I should be "doing something with my life".
Like I'm supposed to "be somebody".
Like I'm supposed to save the world.
I'm very logical and I know its all bullshit, but its still there and I can't get it out of my head.
It's a burden and this sense of guilt lingers.
I tried to let it go.
I did physically let it go.
But that horrible feeling is still there.
That feeling of "what is it that you do?"
"What are you doing with your life?"
"What are your plans?"
I didn't care about any of that.
I don't care what people or society thinks.
They don't even live in the same reality as I do.
They worship gods and sacrifice life for the dollar that they think is actually valuable.
The dollar that says, "In God We Trust".
It's insanity.
But I can't shake that guilt of not "being someone" by "having a career".
It wasn't until I turned 30, for this past year, that I finally lost that feeling.
I think I let it go by logically realizing the truth in the fine detail, delving into the cause and effect of following that path.
I had already experienced what its like to act and work on projects.
Some were fun (the directing parts).
But it never really mattered and when I was acting or working, it was all about trying to get something better.
But for what?
For who?
Why?
Why do I feel that I need to do this?
What's the end result I'm hoping for?
How will I be different and why should I use up my one life only doing that (because I can't enjoy myself when I work, all my time is solely devoted to the project that I may not even like because its someone's else's vision)?
If I were to become famous as an actor, I would absolutely hate it.
Imagine you get known for a role.
You will then spend the rest of your life/career trying to prove that you're not that or not just that.
Because its never satisfying.
It's never who you are or all of you.
You're someone else, that's not who you are.
Back in college, in acting classes, it was all about sitting in a circle and revealing our deepest secrets.
It was a therapy session.
Acting can be therapy.
And we sat in a circle and discussed our monologues that revealed the tragedies of our past.
I wonder if all the other students realized that it was therapy.
And that therapy I think cures a lot of people of what they're holding in from their past (abandonment, rape/molestation, big regrets).
A lot of students act in college and then realize that they don't need it anymore.
They're wanting to act was their inner selves wanting to break free from the cage of society or whatever fucked up family life they had.
I'm a really private person.
I like my anonymity.
I would hate to be in public and be recognized.
Being a celebrity is a horrible thing because people only like you for fame and you can't trust anyone because the real world suddenly becomes fake (like a gold-digging wife who doesn't care about you).
I experienced that every time I told someone what it is that I do ("I'm an actor").
The response was either jealous hate (from guys) or a sudden bullshit mask of adoration (from women).
You weren't this excited when you were just talking to me, but I say 'actor' and suddenly you see the stars and social-popularity perks in their eyes.
It's scary.
And I've talked to and related the same thing with another local actor (he gets the same thing).
Which brings me to what I do for money, which is work in the restaurant service-industry.
That just kills any interest in women's eyes.
Its hilarious.
"What do you do?"
"I'm a delivery driver" or "I work in a restaurant"
You can hear their canyons dry up faster than a million voices crying out in terror that were suddenly silenced.
Anyway, those are just some of my thoughts that helped me cope with the decision to no longer pursue that career.
And that's just a small part of what I wanted to do.
Ultimately, I know and realize that none of what we really do matters (this is the part where I don't want to be taken as negative).
Yes, everything is connected and affects everything else.
Cause and effect.
There's only one way anything was ever going to play out.
I don't believe in some kind of Fate or Destiny that controls us, not in the spiritual (a god is guiding you) sort of way.
Though, it must be realized that everything is an effect of a previous cause.
Its all dominoes falling.
You were always going to make the decisions you make based on EVERYTHING that has already happened.
EVERYTHING has influenced each move, each decision.
Yes, we do have choice, but those choices are influenced by everything you've experienced and the reality around you.
So in a way, there is Fate and Destiny.
I'm not saying for someone to stand in the middle of a highway and see what happens; I'm saying that everything influences everything else to where choice is merely an illusion and you were always going to make that choice (flashback to the architect in The Matrix Reloaded).
(continued)
What I, essentially, wanted to say was that we are all going to die.
You will not be remembered.
No one will.
Because there will be no one to remember.
Sure, you could do "great things" and be remembered by those that live in the spark that is the next 100 years, but even then, it doesn't matter.
They will not remember YOU, they'll just remember your creation.
They can never really KNOW YOU.
Your relatives will remember you, but not really YOU.
As you said, they don't even get you.
They'll be remembering their version of you.
Just like we remember a movie filtered through our own vision and inner being.
What I'm saying is that you will be dead and nothing will matter.
Even if someone remembers your name, so what?
Living is all that matters.
Awareness, being, sentience, imagination, thought, dreams.
That's what matters.
At least to me.
Brad Pitt will be remembered for maybe the next 100 years.
But we'll remember the celebrity 'Brad Pitt'.
We don't even know him.
I don't even know you.
I love your videos and I think I love you based on everything you've shared with me thus far, but I still don't really know you.
I'd argue even your wife doesn't know you and you don't know your wife.
We are so many layers of being.
I thought I knew my blood relatives (the people I called 'family') and recently we've cut off all interaction with each other because we found out things about each other that we weren't aware of in our entire lives of living together.
Just like how you speak about you and your family/relatives: its this surface level of knowing each other.
They live in one reality and you in another.
And there's no real deep down understanding besides surface level labels of 'mother', 'son', 'nephew', etc.
What I'm here to say is: Live for you and you alone.
Contributing to society is wonderful.
Doing something 'great' can be fun.
But do it because YOU want and enjoy doing it.
Because YOU care about it and not what society or what you think society will care about what it is.
Everyone is too concerned with themselves and how others perceive them to notice anyone else.
Everyone's too worried about how others perceive them.
Even when people make fun of someone, its out of carelessness and sometimes insecurity (they usually don't realize how much they hurt the target of their casual mocking because some persons think that only they can get hurt because they see everyone else as higher or more confident than they are, thus the attempt to tear them down).
Though, I don't want to discourage you from any goals you have. (My reluctance to post this).
Imagine if I told all this to Steve Jobs and he was like, "You're right, fuck all this Apple bullshit."
That's not my intention.
Of course, its not a big deal if he didn't create Apple products.
Just wanted to get these thoughts across:
Nothing matters but having fun in this vacation from non-existence.
Don't worry or beat yourself up over these silent and invisible weights society has embedded in our minds.
There are no rules because you are not to be ruled over.
Enjoy everything.
There is nothing that you have to do or somebody that you have to be.
Just be yourself and do what you love with no worries.
Having fun is not a waste of time.
Life and Time and Reality is what we make of it, we internalize it and give it our own meaning, when to the universe, it means nothing: it just is.
In fact nothing exists except through perception of the mind of the beholder.
There was no god.
There was no big bang.
It always was and never was.
Existence is when you're alive/dreaming.
Non-existence is when you're dead.
Infinity is the backstory to your story and the hopes and fears long after you're dead.
In other words, the past and future (and even the present) are only in your mind to make sense of what's happening now.
That's why I love storytelling (movies, videogames, books, shows, etc.): It's living another life, a full one.
Just like your whole life so far is existing in an instant because you remember it in a mere thought/memory.
You're really just playing in your perception of life/reality.
Life is the same as a dream.
You are creating the story as you're living it, without even knowing it.
Creating as you're playing.
Because its all in your mind.
Well, its all in my mind, because you're in my mind and I can only speak for myself, because the only thing for sure is that ' I am and I perceive/dream '.
But in my mind, in my reality, you have a mind too, so its like these infinite perceptions that create more perceptions and all have a life of their own.
Back to the 'finding your way' thing:
Imagine that you're dead (because we can die at any time).
When you're dead nothing matters.
Its only when you are aware of death, that you are free to make your dreams a reality, because you have nothing to lose, if (in your mind) you're already dead.
If you read this book, thanks.
I hope you enjoyed it and take it all as positivity, because that's what it was meant as.
And if you didn't enjoy it and saw this as meaningless rambling, I'm sorry.
Btw, I enjoyed this video.
I can relate.
Actually, I do enjoy your 'books'/comments. It's always fascinating to explore another person's perspective. Examining and understanding as many different individual perceptions of reality is how you form your own, rich, thoughtful take on existence. While my perception and perspective differs in some ways compared to what you have presented, I largely feel the same way about most things you discussed.
I would add that while it is impossible for anyone to truly know the 'real you', it is similarly impossible for you to know yourself. I believe that there is a core 'you' that you are born with, that has and will always be, but that core 'you' is surrounded by an ever-changing shell that forms your perception of yourself. That shell is in a constant state of flux from the second you are born, until you die. While the core 'you' is always present and can help guide your actions, emotions, and decisions, that ever-changing shell is influenced by outside sources (your daily life), and everything that comes with it.
In every stage of your life, as your position changes, you age, you experience and learn different things, your 'self' changes. How you feel about, understand, experience, and feel about things around you can change over time. In that way, I suggest that 'knowing yourself' is as impossible as someone else knowing 'you', as the identity of who you truly are is always changing.
I will also add that the idea of being 'forgotten' is something that scares me more than anything else. In a way, if I never do anything that will have 'me'/my creation or action, remembered for hundreds of years to come, then my existence was pointless.
In essence, I believe that something created that withstands that test of time is something created with a passion that comes from that 'core self', something that while it doesn't mean anything will remember 'you', they will forever remember are part of the true you as it is eternally expressed through your creation. For instance, I believe that should I write and publish 100 books in my lifetime, there may be 1 or 2 of those creations that truly taps into the core of who I am, and a part of me will live on through them.
I thought you'd be like 24-25.
haha, thanks! I usually get 30-35.