It's been about two months since my last blog posts and summer seems to be steadily humming along. I got back to ?? about a month ago and feel like I've fallen back into my normal routine (for better or worse).
The big thing that's going on right now is going for promo at work. It's been an exhausting amount of work and, while I initially thought that I didn't care much about it either way, I feel like the effort I put into my actual promo packet has made me feel otherwise. That is, I do care about it more now and, as I write this, I'm staring down the eve of the decision that will happen tomorrow.
I'm still not sure why I care so much. I guess it's mainly just an ego thing, and it could have some small practical benefits later on in life (like saying my title was X). If I don't get it, at least it will act as a catalyst or some justification to just leave - I'd probably free far less guilty about it for sure. If I do get it, I'll probably leave anyway but maybe wait until the end of the year.
I guess the point I'm circling around is that this promo decision or not doesn't really affect my overall plan. Sometimes though, I just feel burnt out. I want to help C do more implementation stuff for our startup but it's hard to find motivation sometimes. Somedays I just feel like I want to play smash, badminton and think about writing. Should I feel guilty about that? Maybe I need some time to just relax too. I do appreciate my friendship with C a lot though, I think it pushes me to take risks and do things I wouldn't do otherwise because I'm too scared - like starting a real company.
Maybe it'd be better to just try to get funding or even quit and work on ?? full-time before I have funding. In particular, I'm worried that this lifestyle of doing startup work on evenings/weekends is burning me out and making me lose motivation for an idea I genuinely thought was interesting. I need to learn how to preserve that motivation, because I think it's really the most important thing I'll have going forward.
I should start writing again though, I think that's something I truly want to do but I just need to make it part of my routine again. I was hoping I would write tonight, but got distracted by random badminton videos and youtube and this blog post. Nonetheless, I am happy with my life right now but worry that, as usual, if I'm just stuck in a local maxima and optimizing for the short-term. We'll see - I think this promo decision will be a key factor in how the rest of the year will play out. But I've already decided I'll quit at the end of the year for the very latest, I know it's time to move on.
What else has been going on in life? There's K, who also goes to badminton and I've gotten quite close with in the past year. Sometimes I think I like her but, other times, I feel like I just want to be her friend and help her get settled in a new place (give her advice etc.). Regardless of my feelings, I'm happy for the community of friends I've built organically via badminton here.
I've been missing S lately too, mainly on the physical intimacy side. It feels weird to say because I thought I didn't care about sex and physical stuff _that_ much but I kind of miss the excitement of seeing her and going on dates, or just hanging out on the couch watching TV. But I also admire that she has her own ambitions - I'll probably message her next month to see where we're both at.
Other than that, there's the usual existential dread of my parents dying, which for some reason I've been focusing on more lately. The fact that there's a likely future where I can't call mom/dad anymore or see them ever again feels hard to comprehend. Death of a loved one feels so far out-of-distribution from my normal experience that I can't even consider how I might feel when/if that happens. But I know it is likely to happen and what scares me is that I have no defense, no way for which I can prepare myself mentally.
I suppose that's it for now. I know this post had a melancholy tone but actually life is quite fine/busy on the whole. There's always worries and uncertainties bubbling beneath the surface but maybe I shouldn't let it bother me too much - as long as I never forget to make progress towards my dreams.
