Giving up on dreams

But it's like, =sad= to give up on your dreams, isn't it?

We go through childhood constantly being told what not to do -- don't touch that, don't put that in your mouth, be quiet, sit still.  You can tell when you've progressed beyond being a child because you start being told what =to= do instead -- study harder, take our the trash, apply for the scholarship, tell me about your day.  Further on in life you may think that you have partially escaped this, but you didn't really, it's just that nobody is telling you anything, so you end up putting yourself in that role instead, telling yourself what to do.  I need to file my taxes, I need to do the groceries, I should sleep earlier, I should exercise more.

And yet even as adults we tell ourselves what we can't do, it just might not really feel like it because so often it's seen through the lens of "that's just the way it is".  It's more sinister in that way, maybe.  Of course we can't stay up late anymore that's only something you can do when you're younger.  Meeting new friends and going to parties is something you do when you're in college.  People don't write letters anymore.

The creeping vine of "that's just the way it is" is everywhere.  People get used to something and then just there's this weird feeling in the air that it's this inescapable fact of life.  You'll never get a job in this economy.  If you want to find love you have to slog through online dating.  If you make a living with your passion you'll grow to hate it.  Friends grow apart if they move away.

And sometimes the suggestive power of this sort of thing is so hard to catch despite being so powerful.  I suffered through psychosomatic wrist pains for an entire year because people were telling me that "when you use the computer too much, this is what happens to you".  Many people have reported the same thing about back pains* (ignoring all of the nuance in this topic b/c it's too much to get into), sometimes when we hear enough about something, it ends up just becoming our reality.

Of course, there is often merit in what these ideas are getting at, but why is it that when we're confronted with such knowledge we are so quick to take it at face value and just turn the other way?  To conform to gender norms, to lead a "safe" life, to give up on being the best, to deem our dreams unrealistic, to settle.

As someone who prefers to just stay in their comfort zone and avoid trying too many new things it might seem that I'm the kind of person who would simply take the path of least resistance, not really standing out much, not really pushing against the norm.

But...like I said, it's...=sad= to give up on your dreams, isn't it?  

Maybe it's "easier" to just wear pants and not skirts, to take the job at Google, to lead and not follow, to stop caring about things from 10 years ago, to stop writing handwritten letters, to not be friends with my ex.

But it's also like, impossible.  Maybe these are some of the biggest clues that we can glean about who we truly are, that even when it flies in the face of everything else we've heard, there are some things that we for some reason can't help but stubbornly hold onto.  Don't let anyone take those things away from you.  Even if you don't have them, they will be yours forever.

We look back upon our childhood memories fondly, wondering "why can't it be like it used to" despite having more money, more experience, more knowledge, more disposable income.  We "have no time" to connect, to play, to relax and yet many of us are no longer in a situation where we live under a power dynamic where we must do as we are told*.  "We don't do the things we used to" not because the videogames disappeared, not because our art supplies vanished from our dusty plastic storage bin, but because somewhere along the line we decided that we would stop.  Or worse yet, we had it decided for us and never questioned it.

Throughout the years I always have people ask me from time to time how I manage to do and keep up with so many different things.  I produce music, play videogames, sharpen knives, write letters, do social dance, practice pixel art, make my own games, type blog posts, cook every day.  The allocation of your time and energy is a zero-sum game.  I think people know this, but as I go on I've started thinking that it really is just that simple sometimes*.  When you say "yes" to something it means saying "no" to something else.  The more that you say "yes" to, the more that you say "no" to.  I don't really have infinite time or energy either, there's just less other things that I'm doing because these are the things that I made sure that I'm doing.  What are the things that you are making sure that you are doing?  Did you choose them?  Or were they simply put in front of you?