I'll go ahead and necrobump since I recently thought about the subject and immediately remembered this thread.
Anyway, seeing how New Years is often the time that people reflect on their lives and make their resolutions in an attempt to turn their lives for the better or at least better understand their goals and passions, I decided to dig through my memories a fair bit to see what my passions and goals were, because, as you might expect, I can't really say I have any. Though, who knows, they may be buried in the past, after all, as many have suggested, there may be some kind of "archetypal" kind of passion, or a long-lost, innate childhood passion that, for one reason or another, wasn't provided the means to be realized.
Well, I did all that, couldn't sleep well until it was almost morning and kept thinking about it the day after. The result? A letdown.
My childhood interests coincide almost perfectly with what my adult self does, in spite of the fact that, to my current self, it all seems like a waste of time that I want to break away from.
To elaborate, my conclusions upon reflecting on my childhood self's interests are the following:
I liked videogames; I liked discovering new media/content I didn't know existed (but I often did not consume it); I liked daydreaming/dissociating; I liked collecting things; I did not like being around other people; I did not care about school, chores or interacting with the real world, generally speaking, unless I was told to/was coerced into it; I did not care about artistic pursuits, my creativity was spontaneous but simple, a far cry from the deliberate, planned-out work professional (or aspiring professional) artists actually do.
To repeat myself: my current self's core interests are essentially the same. I made attempts to pick up new hobbies and activities, but more often than not they did not stick or, I have to admit, I had to force myself to pursue said hobbies and activities. There are its own reasons for that, primarily: I picked those up out of desperation to be "more productive" and "be able to do more", "monetize it in the future", approached them with an inappropriate sense of professionalism, often setting a high bar for myself, without deriving much fun or sense of personal accomplishment first, as others have also pointed out.
Regardless, I now wonder where this leaves me. Do I have a "core" that is completely unchangeable? Is it even possible for me to develo
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