What would I do if money were no object? And thoughts on charging
2021
My answer to that question has drastically changed these months as more and more the meaning of my life no longer feels like it's all for my own happiness. Or I guess it really all is, but now some people are so paramount in it that making them happy is akin to making myself happy.
It takes a lot of time to invest so deeply in one person. Suddenly I don’t have as much time for all the other connections and even the time I used to spend solitary, learning and developing independently.
It scares me. I know I’m not keeping up as much with knowledge intake as I used to when I was more of a loner, spent more time in my room reading/listening to works which filled my head with the latest information. But maybe this is the way it should be, it’s better for my ultimate happiness. To let go of my identity as so tied around knowing things, diving into things, being independent. Humans in the Pleistocene wouldn’t have been able to spend all day absorbing new knowledge - they’d be doing more things.
Maybe this is a convoluted way of saying I want to be more than nerdy. But learning makes me happy. But I can learn things in different ways too, together with someone. And I know my default way of spending time my whole life will lead to brain atrophy as I won’t be engaging other parts of myself.
I feel scared that I’m falling behind. I always feel scared of that.
I feel scared of being too happy, too content. I feel lazy when I’m not doing something. I want to convince myself that not doing something is okay. I know I keep harping on this theme but it really is dominant in my life.
As I think more deeply about how to allocate my time. I feel socially maxed out, over the limit, and need to be more mindful of who I interact with and why. I am really grateful for all I have connected with online and offline, and at the same time am seeing a need to prune again.
For me a huge guilt chip goes off if I see a message, an ask for help. I just can't ignore it. I'm working on setting clearer guidelines on how I will respond to Internet strangers who want to connect. Most likely this will evolve into charging strangers for my advice, which at face value makes me feel bad but also I know this is the only way to make this sustainable in the future.