It's been a damn long time. I haven't posted a blog since August/September last year, and I almost forget what I'm doing. I've still been here, lurking, +1ing and posting occasionally.
Although there is a reason due to my infrequency. I typically prefer to have content such as art, and speak little of my personal life because I've found it a bit crude in the past. But here I am:LifeAround about the time of my last blog, I was about halfway through grade 11. At this time I was pretty severely depressed, and this collided with school, and I fucked up big time. My grades were descending, and I finished the year abysmally, failing half of my classes. Fortunately for me, only my 12th year of highschool counts towards my exit mark, and grade 11 is meaningless.I had a major stint of depression early 2010, and it finally came back last year, worse than ever. I was doing ok in school, but I was hit with the realisation that I hadn't done much art wise, I wasn't very sociable, and I realised I've been miserable my whole life. But, most of all, I was just tired. Yes, the best way to describe my depression would be tired; I'm disinterested, and burnt out.To this day I'm still depressed, but it's on and off. Because of my state, I've also changed a fair bit. Right now I'm very pessimistic. I used to be optimistic during days when I'd be able to be creative, and think "Oh hey, if I just stick to this routine things will turn out ok", but they never do, and as I look back on those days, and wasted thoughts, I have developed very low expectations of myself. Another thing, I don't really think there's any way of determining which state of myself is right or thinking most logically. When I'm angry or depressed, I think in the moment, and respond to that experience directly. When I'm calm or happy, I think differently to when I was angry or depressed. I think in retrospect, and am able to look back on things with a clear mind, but I am also not directly experiencing it, just as someone might say "the pain wasn't that bad", after their experience of it.I've started school again – my final year – and… I'm not sure how I'll do. I know that this year is actually important, so I know I actually ought to try and do well, but I feel my personal issues will still conflict with that. I'm going to try and achieve good results, if only so that I don't look back in a few years time and think "why the fuck did I let myself fail, that was important". Because of what seems to be a partial bipolarity I posses, I can never trust myself. I think about finishing school and getting an office job or something similar, and ponder about how well I might handle responsibility, despite my motivation issues. I think that I'll be able to overcome that, because it's important, but I don't know. Like I said, I can't trust myself and have very low personal expectations.That's enough for now. I figured writing this out would make me feel better, but now I actually just feel horrible. Good thing I wrote the rest of the blog first.And so…Old ArtI haven't done anything creative for several months. I haven't even picked up a pen with the intent of creativity, I haven't even drawn but a doodle; but I still have some old artwork to share:
More isometric stuff.More.MusicI played Age of Empires 2 again, and I paid attention to the music. It is beautiful.I love this track.The mystery and thoughtfulness is like nothing I've ever heard.GamesI played Nifflas' Knytt games. They are perfect. Knytt's open platform exploration is everything I've wanted from the genre. The music chimes in perfectly, sound effects really fit, art and level design is very nice and immersible.I also played a bunch of Hempuli games, and love his stuff.IGF finalists were announced and I am annoyed with the selection.And that's it. Excuse how incoherent my writing might be, it was tough for me to get out, and I just wanted to be done with it. I actually feel kind of ashamed to come back here and post when I haven't even created anything new, and haven't been working on any games. Hopefully I can pick up my act a bit, because I love this community.
With you saying you feel burnt out and tired, I think you might just be clinically depressed. Usually teenagers like us flip out and are depressed for a day or two and then bounce back right away. Long-term means….something else. I think your loss of inspiration and motivation is not of your own doing.
Also, everyone sees things differently when looking back. One of my teacher's favorite sayings is, "Hindsight is 20/20." The challenge with this is making the best of everything so that when you look back, you see it as something great, something worth doing. But until you're at the point where you can look back, you have to be sure that you're doing the things you love right now. I'm totally unsure of where I'm going. I don't know if I'll be any good with music later on in life. But I'm centering my life around it because it's what I love right now, and I can't regret that.Besides that, I didn't know you're in the same grade as me. Senior year's looking like the hardest year of my life so far. But I'm pushing through it, and I hope you will too. This is your art? You've got some serious talent. When you're feeling better, I hope we'll get to see a lot more of that pouring into the site. But for now, we understand. We've all got our downtimes. I hope you feel better soon.I love that you stepped up to do a personal blog. It means a lot to me that you put so much trust into this community. <3I'm not so sure my depression was clinical. I see that what I struggled with was more self pity and self loathing than being legitimately depressed, but these recent weeks have been much worse, and much more real, in the sense that I genuinely wanted nothing; I didn't want to do anything, I didn't want fun, I didn't want company, I didn't want sleep and I didn't even want to cry about it. This was extremely frustrating, and I just didn't want to be, as it were.
No, I think what I have been dealing with for the majority of the time has been my bipolarity. I haven't been diagnosed with it, but I'm pretty certain I'm bipolar, or have ADHD or I'm messed up mentally some other way. I think this, because of my drastic and sudden mood and energy swings. I can barely maintain a feeling or notion for longer than about 4 hours.I'm sure school for me will be tough (I'm Australian, so my school year just started), but I know I posses the ability to do well. I've even been told all my life "he's talented, has potential, but will only succeed if he puts the effort in.". Yet, I'm very hesitant to confidently say that I'll be able to do it, because like I've been saying; I can't trust my future self. But I ought to live in the moment like you say, I guess.Fuck. It's only been a day or so and I look back at this blog and regret posting it.
I have no idea what you are talking about, reidd. It's not really uncommon to be annoyed by people who pretend to be part of a community for so long and stuff while they are not really.
Now, don't see it as anything personally, I just show people my annoyance whenever they annoy me. It's that simple.In any case, I am going off-topic here –Nice art, SMP! I've never seen hand-drawn isometric art before, so I guess that's a good thing :Pi don't think she ever said she's been a part of this community for a long time?
she's clearly someone who cares a lot about other people, and seeing someone put their trust into something, and opening up to let their feelings out (in a place where it's generally not well received), probably means a lot her. hell, it means a lot to me, because i respect the courage it takes, and i know how hard it can be to do such a thing.it shouldn't matter if you've been here for one hour, or one century; knowing that there are people who trust in this community, and there are people who support this community should be all that matters.written before xemic edited his post, so this probably seems a bit douchy..Uhm why is this issue? =p Maybe just erase the comment and forget about it? =D
Yeah Xemic, judging by that post, I'd have easily mistaken you for Rob or EV.