What Do I Really Want?

I finished Atomic Habits recently and started on The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. This book is making me consider things I had wanted to pursue when I was younger but gave up on out of laziness and lack of discipline. These include learning to compose, draw, and speak Spanish. A big vision of mine was to work as a video game developer, and this fueled my interest in computers and programming. This desire persists somewhat even now.

As I have grown, apathy has really become a problem for me. Because my effort has been minimal—certainly not that of a proper novice—nothing has ever "worked," and I’ve given up on learning or trying new things. Now that I understand any great pursuit requires dedication for months before any real progress occurs, perhaps it is time to set my apathy aside and try again.

Of the three skills I listed, drawing and Spanish are straightforward to progress in, and I think I will reach a satisfactory level in both if I practice them for about a year. Composition is another matter entirely. Music theory is incredibly complex, and this is coupled with the fact that you must learn an instrument alongside your study. I could do it, and there is certainly an aesthetic grandeur to the idea, but the undertaking is too immense to consider. This is especially true because of the added difficulty of doing it alone. I could simply learn to play guitar and leave it at that.

When I played Elden Ring, I felt upset that I would never get to work on such a great product myself. That feeling was mistaken; I know now that I can get to that point. This implies continuing down the computer science route I have chosen. I have enjoyed video games throughout my life. To work as a developer would be a great career.

I’ve also seen myself as a self-sufficient homesteader. I would have to let go of the city and accept the countryside. That is very difficult because there is so much about cities that fills me with joy.

I know that I must be willing to take full responsibility for myself, rejecting any notion of what I should do, and instead focusing fully on what I want. The challenge is that even the most appealing options have some aspect that irks me. What I really want is to be as close to a generalist as possible—someone without definition, almost like a blank slate, yet still effective. Perhaps that means I just want to be an entrepreneur or a leader.