Manic Unimpressive – Chasing the Red Dot of an Eclectic Interest Set

Hello Happy Reader!

This one is kind of a ramble. Maybe you’ll find it relatable.

Chasing the Red Dot

Simply stated: They go from Manic speed-chasing to Unimpressed lethargy.

And this is me for the last few days. The unimpressed lethargy part, that is. I’ll explain…

State of the Wampuscat

I have a To-Do List that is a mile long. It consists of things I must do, but a lot of it is made up of things that I Want to do. At least, I wanted to do it at the time I put it on the list, but we’ll get to that.

If you are like me, you hate being bored. When I’m bored, I either dust off this list of things I have written down, or I go in search of a new thing that might interest me. Often that leads to even more things on the list. Did I mention that the list was long?

When I’m NOT bored, though… when I’m in a Manic idea mode, I also add things to the list. In the area of writing, for example, there are days when I have ideas for stories to write just oozing out of my pores. I jot them down in hopes of remembering them later and getting the whole thing fleshed out.

But, invariably, there are other things that I also want to do beside writing. So, I postpone the writing. [The sitting down and writing is the hardest part for me anyway. The ideas are easy, the writing is hard. ]

While I’m having this time of great ideas, I usually also have a burning desire to finish something on that To-Do List. I am goal oriented, so I get a major sense of satisfaction when I complete a task. On these days, I will sometimes get on a roll and knock out several things at once. Those are the good days. High productivity and motivating.

Other days, though, I look at the list and become very disappointed with my progress. It is …Unimpressive… to my mind. This creates a negative feedback loop that makes me go… Bleh. My give-a-shittitude departs.

Of course, I still want to do the things, but I just don’t want to do the things ‘right now’. So, does that mean I can use the time wisely and sit down and write?

Nope!

Because now I have the bleh’s and just can’t bring myself to care about getting it done.

The Paw Swats of Apathy

Just like my pooped out dot-chasing kitties lazily at the object of their failed desires, I also have a slight exception that overcomes my bleh-vage… When the task has a deadline or inter-personal commitment attached to it.

Take this blog post for example; I didn’t want to put it together tonight. And yet here I sit typing this out. Why? Because I made a commitment to do a blog post on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. It has a deadline.

All of my other things don’t have deadlines, so I can procrastinate. And creating an artificial deadline does not work because I know it’s artificial, and I can skip it if I want. So, when I don’t wanna, I usually ain’t gonna unless I’ve made a commitment.

Another example: I run a bi-weekly D&D game online for a group of friends. We play on Saturdays. I was very very bleh this Saturday (might have had a silent migraine too, not sure). But, I still ran the game for my friends because it was a commitment I had made. I like playing, and we ended up having fun, as usual. I figured that would be the case. It did not make those bleh’s go away though. I just had to swat at it until it was done.

There are also those annoying things that I’ve procrastinated on that are stacking up and will soon have to be dealt with no matter what. I tend to resent those tasks, but I still get a sigh of relief when I get them done. (I have a pan of shelled peas in my refrigerator that need canning, the floor is covered in cat hair and needs vacuuming, the yard needs to be cut, and the damned exhaust fan in the bathroom is squealing again…. wait… there, I oiled it. One project complete. *Self-back-pat* *swat swat*)

What does any of that have to do with an Eclectic Interest Set?

Well, when you hate being bored, but you are in the Unimpressive throes of Bleh-dom (and you are not reluctantly swatting at commitments), you have to do something. For me, that usually involves goofing off and looking for your next red dot to chase.

In my case, I found out that there is another 3D engineering software package out there that companies are using for design work called Solid Edge. I don’t know how to use it, but I can learn. I also have a design project already on the list that I can swat at. My young guinea flock needs a new coop, and I want it to be mobile. This will involve building a coop on an old pop-up camper trailer bed I have. So, I downloaded the trial version of the software and began watching tutorial videos.

Now, I have a month long plan to train myself on this new software and to design my guinea trailer and to build it and to keep up with all the other things and and and… do you see where I’m going with this?

It’s another red dot, yes. But it’s also pulling me out of the bleh-zone, just like writing this blog.

You see, there are so many other interesting things in the world to learn about! There are so many interesting things to do and try. I get overwhelmed with my desire to do them, and then I bleh when I can’t do them all fast enough. It’s a viscous cycle that I just can’t seem to escape! Arrrrgh! Curse You Red Dot! But, honestly, I would not want to change that eclectic curiosity that I have for anything. How boring would that be!?

Conclusion

My other projects (that I didn’t want to do ‘right now’) are on hold until I do this one. Or until I bleh myself out with it, whichever comes first.

Hopefully I’ll succeed this time because I have two deadlines involved. One is the fact that my guinea keets need to be upgraded to a bigger space very soon (like now-ish), and the other is the free trial of the software ends in a month, so I have to be done before then.

The writing tasks are just going to have to take a back seat, I guess. So many good ideas, and so little Mania.

Well, that’s probably more info that you cared to hear. Or, maybe you suffer from the same thing, and seeing that someone else does too makes you all happy and shit. I hope so.

Happy Red Dot Chasing!