I painted this piece called Pilgrims in the last few days of 2021.I think it kind of expressed a collective tiresome we all experienced over these few years. Regardless it might have gone worth because of the pandemic, as an adult in this chaotic new tech ages, there's already more than enough things in life to stress you out.
Looking back at my youth, happiness felt very differently, it lasted much longer and deeper. Simple things like fireworks, going to swimming, riding bikes can charge up my happy battery for days. However the pure happy moment in life now is almost rare. I thought when I finished the game I worked on for four years, I would feel four-years-worth of happiness. But I didn't, I just felt relieved, then tired. And the work can never be truly finished, after launch you have to do promotion, marketing, localization, porting...even after all that, people still ask about your next project, and I also wondering what game should I do next so that I can provide to people I am a real game dev, not just someone who got lucky on her first shot.
So there's seems no ending on the path I took. No matter how much effort I put in, I can't help but feeling the absence of accomplishment. Because when you achieved the original goal, the newer finishing line just seems immediately been extended further, it feels like someone hiding in the dark, pulling it maliciously.
You never feel arrived. I wondered why.
During my day off I can barely feel relaxed. It has become a joke now, I feel guilty that I could have use the time off to work on some side project, however, I really don't wanna do it because it’s my day off, I earned it. But I get bored really quick by doing nothing. My husband suggest me to "Do something just for fun" but it has became the most difficult thing for me to come up. Sometimes I got so stressed out I just went back to work.
Seems like as an adult, the culture tend to teach us to learn to appreciated the beauty within difficult things, the delayed gratification, work hard then play hard. I am now has become the master of delayed gratification, bullet journal queen, workaholic. But I also become my harshness critics, I judge my own performance all the time to the highest standard for no reason. I realized I complete lost the ability to please myself.
For example, when we gave up getting pleasure from simple things and trying to learn to play an instrument instead, the rewards IS fulfilling, compare with the joy of eating sweets, but it was the kind of happiness that require a lots of hardship. Too much hardship can be tiresome, and nowadays most of the time when you work hard you have no energy left to play hard.
Now I finally know why I can’t simply do anything “For fun”, because for fun is against all the productive-self-discipline doctrine, and deep-down, I don't want to be judged by myself about how well I did on “having fun”.
Today is the first day of 2022.
My new year resolutions is not to have one. New year resolution is a trap for adults to feel guilty for no reason. I hope by end of 2022 I look back at the year, I don't have to achieve anything and also regret none. Just like this painting, it wasn't finished actually, I know I can always make it more perfect by adding more details but I felt I should just leave it as it was, it doesn’t needs to be a master piece or even a good piece.