Drafts

An irreverent INTJ's drafts, stories, pictures, videos, and words. (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){ (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o), m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m) })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga'); ga('create', 'UA-58111307-1', 'auto'); ga('send', 'pageview');

[biosigh]

Five Years Later

I feel as if I'm floating through space. I can feel the ebb and flow of existence as I drift along a current of dark matter, solar ejecta, and gravity waves among the incontrovertible vastness of this black drip. I gave up journaling five years ago, though not deliberately or intentionally. As with many hobbies, hopes, and dreams, I let it fall to the wayside in an almost childlike and capricious neglect as my senses were inundated with the rush of living presently.

I forgot.

I had been fixated on controlling my present and future that I dismissed the past and its useless reflection as a memoir on my life. A waste of time, at least, that is until I felt existential dread grip me by the ankles and drag me into the cosmos of bleakness where I now find myself tumbling. Looking back, I only see a time capsule, borne in this blog and now surrounded by the degeneracy of tumblr's attempt to fill the vapid nothingness with pitiful offerings.

My life, my present life, is going great. I should have no complaints. I'm heading towards completing my PGY3 year of medical residency, my relationship with my mom is fantastic, I feel well-liked in my circles, I'm in love, and the future just seems so bright to me; I'm heading towards such a luminous future like a star in the distance. Except why do I feel dread?

As my body rolls through space, I see glimpses of that bright star ahead, glimpses of my time capsule behind, and everything else is just darkness. Let me help add some nuance:

I'm heading towards completing my PGY3 year, however I need to find a job. I know I'll get a job, and I know I'll get one where I want to go but the uncertainty of what kind of role I'll have - contractor or employee - soul-killing job or enriching - community or academic - per diem or full time - locum or local? It's tough because I don't know how to circumvent this. Many places want someone soon™ or can't see far enough to want me in a year. Other places want me to sign up, apply and be exclusive with them when I don't feel knowledgeable enough to make a decision without signing away my life for a few years. I'm paralyzed by possibility and I continue to hurtle towards an unknowable future.

My relationship with my mom is fantastic but that came at the cost of losing my dad. He passed during the pandemic but not due to COVID19 - small comfort that is. I felt like he was hanging on until I finished medical school and then felt it was time to leave. I don't think I've ever recovered from that. And inbetween the moments where I think of him and miss him and feel the great weight of loss that this world has, I have glimpses and panic about eventually losing my mom too. Space is cold, no matter how many photos come across me; nothing will ever be as warm as a parent's love.

I feel well-liked in my circles. Everyone seems to want to spend more and more time with me. And as much as I enjoy the welcomeness, I find myself retreating more and more into myself. I don't have gratitude for this because I'm used to striking out my own way. I'm used to solitude. I want to appreciate people, but I feel so exhausted because my time feels owed to others. Relationships are dynamic, and they will eventually die without support. But I so wish I could be a friend who pops in and out. Oddly, the comfort of moving through space is the millennia of solitude.

I'm in love. We're about to enter our 8 years together. He's always given me what I've wanted and what I've needed. And I'm learning to be less selfish in this relationship - I'm not very good at it but I'm learning. I'm afraid that if something happened to him, I will never be able to open up to someone new again (see above). Everyone would be measured against the standard that he is. We worked so hard to forge the relationship of our dreams but my anxieties always brace me for the eventuality - by natural or manmade machinations - that we will be apart. And on and on I float in empty space, alone.

The future seems bright but maybe that's because I can only see nuclear fireworks peppering the sky with blazes of the apocalypse. The future feels bleak. We just survived a pandemic, and an ongoing depression. We have multiple national conflicts stirring with new ones coming around the corners like comets. Are we in the 1920s or 2020s? It's so hard to tell anymore that it feels like time dilation is screwing with my head. Gone were the halcyon days of a promising future, and left behind is the nuclear winter of interstellar space. It's horrifically empty and at times beautifully peaceful.

I just want the spinning to stop. I want to stay frozen in time, locked here blissful in an infinite constant.

[biosigh]

Voltron - White Lion

I had a dream I was the pilot for the White Lion in Voltron. There was an odd exchange in which we were trying to determine my role, so I was just relegated to figuring out the weapons initialization and being a sub for any of the other paladins. In my dream, the White Lion became part of the back and hip of Voltron.

I promise I am not prince Lotor.

[biosigh]

Entry 259 part 2: One Year Later — revisited

Periodically, I reference the starting Point of this blog and various moments that have given it an emotional core. At the very foundation of my writing, is this intrinsic compulsion to express the myriad of mundane feelings arising in me. Usually I dwell on the root causes of the particular compulsions and oftentimes I’ll try to analyze it in some meaningful and criteria-driven way. 

As such, the title of this blog is a response to not only a similar title, but the inception of this blog as well.

This blog started, as many a trite romance stories, because I had a crush on a boy. He’s a year-and-a-half older than I am, and at that time, he seemed like the wise-and-outgoing leader his reputation trumpeted to the world. Of course, to me, he was my biggest crush at that time. Crushes and I aren’t usually compatible, as experience has taught me: the object of my typically unrequited affections is usually: A) taken B) straight C) an asshole D) all of the above. 3

Crushes came in and out of my life like prostitutes through a rundown motel. No one ever remained long enough to be significant, yet I always hoped it would work out that way and not “I’m settling for someone I’m ‘okay’ with.” Well imagine my surprise when my crush fit none of the criteria above: he was single, gay, and a really nice guy. Other than those snippets of information and the fact that I barely knew him, it was almost irrational to have developed any affection. After all, I had briefly known of him for about two years at that point.  

My affections were drawn towards his sadness, in his blogs, in the way he wrote, and in the expressive turmoil that he projected into an anonymous void, hoping to be undiscovered. There was something about his sadness that resonated with me, that lit within me a sense of purpose; “I can be there for him. I can alleviate his pain.” And before long, the more I read, the more my crushing feelings intensified. It metamorphosed from a mild infatuation to a wild obsession. 

Ultimately, as I’ve restated this story over and over, he became aware of my affections — no, that’s not quite accurate; I made him aware of my feelings. I talked to him, asked him out on a coffee-date-but-not-really-date where we got to see each other in person after two years. I remember that feeling of awe as I saw him standing in the coffee shop, bright-eyed and tall. That was the moment my very abstract and intangible notions of romance took concrete form in desire and attraction.

Not long after our encounter, we began talking more online, and I moved to a different state. The following year, an unexpected turn of events unfolded: he revealed his attraction to me as well. We crashed into "love” or I should say an unwieldy lust and limerence. But what can two inexperienced boys do when their early 20s is their first foray into actual romance? It isn’t as if we had practice or coaching from the adults in our lives. Like a burning fire, our passions disintegrated everything between us; it was too much — too fast, too suffocating. As a multitude of my blog responses will show, I did not cope with it well; I tried, but the pain was challenging to overcome. 

One year passed after our on/off relationship had been reduced to cinders. There was no definite moment or clear date that everything happened, so the month of November became a blurred haze of my disgruntled bemoans of agony. I began performing pointless acts of “moving on” such as moving all of my files related to him to the “archives” folder. I splattered a bunch of my juvenile drawings of us, along with the ideas and fancies out in a way to express that I would never touch this topic again. 

I was lying to myself of course, lying until I could actually believe it and adjust my behavior accordingly. I was still very deeply affected and still very deeply in want of his affections. Of that love. None of the guys I had gone on dates with that year made me feel what I felt with him. But it was over and done with and I had nothing else to ruminate on the matter. Life moved on and duet o other environmental and life changes, I began to distract myself for almost another year, and in that time we were in complete silence. An entire year-and-a-month of radio silence.

Then another unexpected event happened the September after. My drunk and very boneheaded classmate (now my roommate and what I could consider as a best friend) sent a message that could be literally construed as a death-threat to him, catalyzing a series of events that brought us together the following November. 

And now, one year passes after our relationship had been reforged. It’s cute to think back on those times where I obsessed with his blog and writings, the galaxy-themed wallpaper, his cacao hair, and our text messages back and forth. That excitement is still there, wrapped up in a bundle of inside jokes, gushing adulation for each other, and underscored by how much we miss each other due to the distance. In response to what I had put before, I’m very glad for these experiences with him, which on the surface probably sound chaotically dysfunctional, but to me they grounded the foundation for what we have now. Looking back, I characterized our relationship then as a “fairy tale romance that never happened” but now that I can add another chapter to the story, I would still agree with that: despite all of the contrivances that brought us together, it would be belittling to call this a fairy tale romance: there is no happily-ever-after because that undermines how true romance is about the every day, the mundane, the small facets. 

I don’t know for a fact how this relationship will grow and change (as all do), nor do I know how this blog will either. But by disallowing myself the indulgence of obsessing about the future, as I’ve obsessed about intangible notions of grandeur, I’ve come to appreciate that each day and each entry is a grand adventure and tale on its own.There will be more “one year laters” in my life and my relationship, and all I have to do is look forward with an open mind, keep myself in the present, and reference the past every so often to appreciate the developments. 

[biosigh]

An article on correlates with intellect

"You have good self control" LOL NOPE. NOT I.

Found this interesting article containing a list of intelligence and correlated behaviors. I thought it was cute and interesting because I exhibit a lot of these behaviors, yet med school ceaselessly reminds me how unintelligent I am. Passing it along because I haven’t had time to write much in this blog and I wanted to at least do something? *Shrug*

[biosigh]

What are some possible self-reflective questions that would summon up a TE or FI-perspective for resolving issues? (-- User with wonky NI-SE right now)

I can really only give you what I ask myself as I’m not the best for advice. If your perceiving functions are off, then I think you have a disconnect from the world and how you process stimuli/data. It could be that you’re processing too much (enhanced Ni) or too little (suppressed Ni) or you’re overwhelmed by information (enhanced Se) or not picking up on enough details (suppressed Se). 

If you have Te higher in your stack, then my belief is that you should be asking what is wrong, specifically what is causing these disruptions. What are short term goals to stabilize your situation and long-term goals to resolve the problems. Then you have to address steps in executing these goals, whether it’s a sequential cause-effect-cause-effect pattern or accomplishing criteria among criteria to get you closer to your various goals. 

The most important points here are to use Te to determine what Ni/Se is bringing in, assess how they are bringing it in based on empirical/evidence-based reasoning, and seeing whether your subjective perceptions are balanced out by objective analysis. This will allow Te to orient how information is being processed and what to do with the information after it’s gone through your various biases and mental corruptions.

If you have Fi higher in your stack, then you need to decide why you are feeling this way. To some extent you are using Te to find out the exact, tangible reasons, and mostly Fi to determine the abstract and motivating reasons. It could be that there’s no objective evidence pertaining to your perception disruptions. It could be that something is irrationally upsetting you or distracting you, and you have to use Fi to delineate how your decisions regarding your perceptive inputs are handled. What are the motivations behind your decisions? Are you trying to fulfill something/are you unfulfilled by something you perceive? How much deviation do these disturbances cause you from your true, authentic self? How does it wear on your conviction and grit to move forward? How are you going to stand your ground in the face of extreme uncertainty or doubt?

In the end, if your perceptive functions are deficient for whatever reason, you need to calibrate them. This is done by the judging functions once you have an idea of what’s causing these disruptions. It’s almost as if you’re taking a step in the dark so that you can actually move closer to wherever light might exist. You’re temporarily using the judging functions in the absence of healthy perception so that you can coordinate and reestablish yourself, providing a space for the perception functions to work again. 

[biosigh]

Nights when I have trouble sleeping

All I can do is write it out. To relieve myself. To review in the future as I’ll hopefully be in a better place.

I feel haunted by obsessive thoughts, all negative and downtrodden extensions of my unconscious mind. Thoughts that make me aloof, detached, and introspective. I don’t think about these things during the day often, because I’m too busy for that.

But as night falls, and my mind plays back the memos in my head incessantly, I can’t do much than ruminate on them. They chase away sleep, and as sleep is further from my grasp, these thoughts intensify, propagating this sick cycle. I only fall asleep when my mind has become too exhausted, and that’s pretty much how I wake up too.

I’m trying to fight it off, but some days I feel so helpless.

[biosigh]

Unease

These anxieties keep creeping up every day. I can’t tell if they’ve lessened or worsened. I feel as if I’m waiting for some impending doom.

This is so familiar to what I’ve felt three years ago: a snap, a break, an end to all ends. I can feel my body tense up, bracing for the impact, waiting to fall apart into shards. Waiting to break completely. 

The unease keeps me awake, as if every coming second brings closer the imminent reality of my prophetic foretelling. Either this coming will break me, or this stress will.

[biosigh]

I can’t talk to anyone

I feel like I’m drowning and I’m despairing in this hopeless ocean. There are lifeboats around me ready to toss their doughnut lifesavers, but I can’t reach out.

I guess it feels more like I don’t want to talk to anyone, hence my frequency writing here. It used to feel good to be emotionally vulnerable with a few people, but now it either feels like it’s too much of a bother to talk about what’s going on with me or it feels like the kinds of thoughts and concerns I’ve had bubbling up aren’t going to be received well.

I’m so irritable and melancholic. I feel drained of purpose and meaning, drifting along haplessly in my wayward life. I have so many plans that are falling into oblivion. 

I want help, but at the same time I reject it.

I’m hoping so desperately to find my own way out of this dreary hopelessness, and every day it feels like surrender beckons me forward, step by step, until I’ve lost myself completely. 

[biosigh]

To my future self:

Dear future-me,

I hope this will all be worth it. I hope that the rough patches I’m going through will be but a faint glimmer in your memory. You know, I thought about writing a letter to our past selves as well; it’s been a while since I last spoke to him. For the longest time I used to sympathize for him and how stupid he felt, how unworthy, and ugly he felt. But now I can empathize with him. I’ve hit another low in my life. Is this new chapter, full of wonderful possibilities, going to be burdened by such a miserable beginning?

I feel doubtful and I feel stupid. I thought I had a grasp on my abilities, but this new phase in life has proven to me that my grasp is not quite secure. I’m losing out on the minutia of my academics, and my motivation to strive for being the best is being constrained by these feelings of worthlessness. It’s been a long time since I felt this way, so powerless to change that which afflicts me. Previous thoughts of “do I belong here?” “Did I ever belong here?” “Was I set up on a road to success only to fail?” Thoughts and thoughts and thoughts of petty derision are chipping away at my sanity and faith. Do you feel this way? Did you get over it? I wish I knew when so I could look forward to that progression, as right now I am cornered by all my faults and failures.

I feel helpless. I feel like I can’t talk to anyone right now. I don’t want to open up to anyone at all. For a time I felt so safe being vulnerable to a few people, and for various reasons in my own life, I’ve lost that security. Now, I’m afraid of letting myself be hurt. I don’t feel like I can talk to anyone who understands; sure, it’s cliche, and on some level people can understand, but they don’t understand everything: the subtleties of each situatIon or nuances of my feelings. I can only talk to you because at least you’ve been through it; at least you won’t judge me the way everyone else does or sneer at me as you piteously and haughtily admonish my behavior. 

I never would have thought that I’d regress to a shell of my former self, living off the meager scraps of my everyday clawing. But I’m here again, crying and mourning my brief flashes of forgotten victories. So again, I hope it was worth it. 

Sincerely, Present me (past me to you).

Post scriptum: I hope you didn’t die.

[biosigh]

Interpersonal relationships and emotional intelligence

I took a test mandated by one of my classes to see the dimensions of emotional strengths and weaknesses I have. 

One of my weakest areas was in interpersonal relationships and investments in social support infrastructure. I find this consistent with my general mode of operation, wherein I’m mostly detached in many relationships and very (very) attached to few.

Nothing recent has epitomized that better like this past month of blunders and conflict: one of my deteriorating friendships has crossed into the boundary of dislike and bitterness, while my romantic relationship is tumultuous with painful bumps along the way. And then even my interpersonal relationships with my classmates has been stunted. I was far more involved and friendly last year. This year, I’ve receded into the sanctum of my room.

I’m not sure if I have the energy to invest in improving this weakness. I’d like to try, but to continue being beleaguered by the spurious demands and expectations of people doesn’t entice me. 

[biosigh]

This is how my week is going

[biosigh]

Traditions and ceremonies

I never much cared for graduation ceremonies. Rituals that serve little practical purpose in my life other than to symbolize some congratulatory officiation. I appreciate the symbolic value they hold, but I feel great disdain for the hours that go into executing them when I could be doing something so much more worthwhile with my time.

I feel the same way towards my induction ceremony for medical school. I have to preface this by saying I used to look forward to this day. Donning the white coat and becoming indoctrinated into a profession of my life’s work. But now that I’m here, I’m kind of over it. I didn’t want to do it (though it was mandatory). It was a nice ceremony and everyone was joyous. I didn’t regret going, but I didn’t particularly care to go either. 

I just kind of wanted to get started already.

[biosigh]

Mechanic - ISTP, Ti, Se

I’ve become acquainted with a mechanic in the past year whom I’ve typed as an ISTP. He fits the Myers-Briggs mold quite well: Socially introverted but also one who parses logical strings in the present environment. One of the aspects that piques my curiosity about him is his very scientific mentality; I’ve witnessed it multiple times wherein a problem or thought exercise needs to be simulated, and he is the first to utter out the use of a test and control, which is logical and jibes with my empirically-focused data collection mode of thinking.

It’s fascinating to observe him because he devises very clever tactics for whatever the present situation requires. Not only that, I’ve noticed him expressing (what I think is) Ti when he connects disparate concepts and scenarios through connected nodes in conversations, jokes, and so on. He’s captured the very essence of wit that I admire in people and him. Additionally, he makes use of my inferior function. He remains hyperobservant (whereas I would need to be hypervigilant) picking apart evanescent details I would have to reexamine multiple times over, and the immediacy of his attention is stunning. His ability to see is unclouded from the messy filter of perception (like mine) which causes him to jump to fewer conclusions than I do. It’s refreshing to see someone so different from me but so relatable in such an ethereal way. 

[biosigh]

Head on a guillotine

When I think of my holistic value to someone else in whatever capacity, when compared to another person, I use the simulated thought exercise of a guillotine. My head is on a guillotine, my rival is on another guillotine, and whichever one of us is saved by our mutual contact condemns the other to certain death.

(For sake of my own sanity, I avoid thinking about being the deciding role).

It’s liberating knowing with almost certainty what the result is, whether or not the result is set in my favor. For example, I know for sure that I am well loved and cherished in one particular relationship, but I can almost state without a doubt that I’d be decapitated when my life is balancing on the scales with someone else whom I acknowledge as immensely more valuable. 

It was a thought that used to send a sickening and sorrowful shiver through my body, but now I’ve accepted it as a certain fact. And I feel freer. Knowing my assets to people gives me clarity as to what my purpose and relationship to them embody. It doesn’t hurt as much anymore relegating myself to my step in someone’s hierarchy.

[biosigh]

I’ve always wanted to be Cristina Yang

There are very few people I wish to emulate, less so characters. Once I latch onto the idea of a character, I fall completely in love with who they are, whether or not they exist in fiction or reality. Cristina Yang is a character from Grey’s Anatomy who departed in the tenth season’s finale; she is the premiere cardiothoracic surgeon, top of her class, arrogantly bold, charmingly charmless, and ever so brilliantly witty. 

Sandra Oh’s mesmerizing characterization of Cristina has endeared her to many of the show’s watchers, of which I am no exception. I’ve been entranced with her persona ever since I began watching this show, and she has been the staying force keeping my intrigue. In the confines of a fictional medical drama, she is the standard to which I hold myself in my pursuit of performance and excellence. I would like to believe that Cristina represents the kind of person I want to become, the doctor whose skills are unquestioningly reliable and brilliance goes unchallenged, despite whatever obstacle stands in her way.

There are key differences that separate us however: first and foremost, she has natural talent, whereas I have to work and strategize. Her academic pedigree in all aspects are superior to mine; her salacious liaisons are diverse and mine are few.

Yet this past week, I’ve never felt so similar to her. Finishing up my graduate degree included two finals with which I had to ensure could not jeopardize my grades and an awards ceremony in which I was nominated as a finalist for outstanding student performance. I watched her finish out her character arc in full swing as I myself finished another chapter in my adventure. I could almost relive that anxious feeling of want for the award, a symbol of my efforts and perseverance, just as Dr. Yang was to be recognized for her conduit research. I wanted so badly for my efforts to be recognized that I was hurt (despite knowing) that she would lose her award. It cast a gloom on me that foreshadowed what could have happened to me. And it made me feel so connected to her character that on some level, I felt at peace with not winning.

And yet I was also an awardee that day. Mostly stunned by shock and awe, I for once felt vindicated in all that I did. I may not be as brilliant, or talented, or beautiful as the eminent Dr. Yang, but I do have qualities that will make me an effective physician in the future. I’m dedicated, full of conviction, intense, balanced, and a tad clever. I don’t have to be Cristina Yang, as much as I once envied her. My past doesn’t change that; it only informs my future drive. I no longer crave to be her. Just as she admits wanting to become Preston Burke, I aspire to become better than she was.

[biosigh]

Videogame Doctors without Borders + Baymax

[biosigh]

Stress indulger

I am a stress-eater. Even now as I write this, knowing I have to study more, my brain is crying out for sugar, sweets, chocolates, and sex. This doesn’t happen when I’m idle and it’s amplified when I’m in a moment of extreme tension. I’m less perceptive and my abilities of planning are impaired or misdirected. I need to binge and I need it now, now, now. All my body is telling me, no matter how I try to steel my mind with discipline and fortitude, is that it wants to feel good.