The temporal disconnect of having a buffer is getting to me again. As I write this, it’s Friday afternoon. I’ve just finished working seven days in a row, staying longer than I expected to for several of those days. I’m tired, burned out, and not feeling like doing much of anything, let alone going to an SCA event over the weekend. By the time this entry gets posted on Monday, I will have managed to sleep in, been to said event, and will presumably be in a much better mood than I am/was on Friday. So what kind of post to I go for? Do I go for an attempt at a happy, well-rested mindset, where I have the brain power to spare to address pertinent issues or subjects that fascinate me? Or do I go for a more morose tone, one that reflects the fatigue of a long work week and the lack of motivation? One wouldn’t be applicable on the day it’s written, while the other wouldn’t be applicable on the day it’s posted.

Truly, this is a conundrum for the ages.

Usually, there’s not as much of a disconnect between when I write and when I post. Sure, a day or two may pass, for example when I blog about my experiences at that week’s fighter practice. But I assume what readers I have can deal with that dissonance; it’s not like I’m blogging about hot-off-the-presses news or bleeding-edge technology developments, after all.

Maybe that’s what’s confusing me: I’m once again thinking about this blog from a reader’s perspective, rather than my own writer’s viewpoint. I keep coming back to the question of who I’m actually writing for. I’ll admit I’m enough of a narcissist human that I get a small thrill out of seeing that people have read the things I write. If I didn’t care about that at all, I wouldn’t be sharing my writing, now would I? But I am, so on some level I do care what other people think. But at the same time, I can’t let that dictate what I can and can’t write about (not that I’m saying that happens in the slightest). This blog is supposed to be an outlet, a project that can both be fun and helpful. That’s not to say it isn’t a commitment; I do try very hard to at least post something every day. But there’s a difference between a commitment and an obligation. And the last thing I want is for blogging to become an obligation. That’s where projects go to die.

Hopefully these musings were more fun than scrolling through a hundred copies of “I don’t know what to write today.” But I’d be remiss if I didn’t attempt to address the temporal disconnect. So here we go:

FRIDAY: “Blargh, I’m tired. I need a day off, where I can just sleep in and not even bother getting dressed. Even packing up the car is too much of a chore. I don’t even know if I’m going to have enough energy to fight in any tournaments this weekend, let alone all of them.”

MONDAY (predicted): “Well, I’m feeling a bit more rested. I’m tired, but I ended up having fun at the event. I’m in a pretty good mood, all things considered. Happy Memorial Day!”

…or something.

So you burned out shortly after going to college, a part of me says. That’s okay, a lot of people are unprepared for the steep learning curve. But it been over a decade since then. Shouldn’t you be over that by now?

Well, internalized voice of condescension, that’s a great question! One I’ve heard many times in various forms throughout the years, both from myself and others. Why don’t we take some time to address it, starting with what it feels like to be burned out.

I will readily admit that burnout is probably different for each person. But for me, burning out meant that all my drive and passion seemed to get sucked out of me. Things had lost their purpose, and I was left wandering aimlessly as a self-identified “good student” who suddenly didn’t like school.

I didn’t know how to deal with this. Nothing in my admittedly limited life experience had prepared me for the rude jolt that college gave me. So at a complete loss, I decided to do more or less nothing. I continued going through the motions: attending classes, turning in assignments, and working my way towards graduation. I changed my major away from hard science and ended up in the foreign language department. Why? Well, I had been studying French since elementary school, and wanted to keep up my skills. It turns out that a French class a quarter over four years is pretty close to a major, so I defaulted to that. I have a French major by default.

Luckily, my school skills were good enough that I don’t think losing drive affected them too much. This was when I discovered that I write a mean first draft. Also when I discovered that I could speed-read whatever section the professor was going to talk about next and still sound reasonably competent. But something had shifted: I was no longer doing my reading and assignments to learn. I was doing them to pass the class. It’s a subtle change, but can make a world of difference.

And these new habits and coping mechanisms have stayed with me ever since. A “new normal,” if you will. All the way through undergrad. All the way through grad school. Even the jobs I’ve had have been more about getting from A to B, rather than accomplishing anything notable or enriching.

I often wonder if I’ve been wasting my time and money, approaching school like this. That same part of me from earlier wonders how things would have been different if I had actually “applied myself” in college and grad school. Would I have learned more? Would I have come out of the experience with something more that a couple fancy pieces of paper and a mountain of debt? Could I ever return to that passion for learning that I had when I was younger?

I don’t know. Contemplating could-have-beens is always a dangerous exercise, doubly so when it’s about you. For me, burning out tore a hole in something, shaking my sense of self to the very foundations. That hole hasn’t really been filled, and I’ve been forced to shore things up around it. An experience like that makes it hard, very hard, to allow yourself to risk being passionate about anything, lest you end up getting hurt again. But life goes on. Somehow, life finds a way.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m something of a recovering perfectionist. I’ve also referred to myself as an “underachieving overachiever.” What do I mean by that? Well, I’m in the habit of knowing I could put more effort into things, but for some reason don’t. But I still feel guilty about it.

What happened? Well, long story short, I burned out in college.

Up through high school, I was a very dedicated and motivated student. I loved learning, even didn’t mind doing homework too much. I was the kind of kid who would read my textbooks for fun. From what I can recall now, I regularly leaped at the chance to do extra work. I did science experiments at the kitchen table. I couldn’t get enough of drafting in AutoCAD. I was put in Honors-level classes whenever possible. In middle school, I actually went to the high school down the hill for some classes. I was a good student, is what I’m saying.

But it wasn’t all roses and butterflies and 4.0 GPAs as far as the I could see. My penchant for good grades probably contributing to my perfectionism. In fact, I still remember freaking out in elementary school because I got a less-than-perfect grade on something. I got pretty bad test anxiety, especially about timed tests. I never was able to memorize the Twelve Times Table. I could be forgetful; if I didn’t write down an assignment I tended to forget it, which also probably stressed me out a bit.

Then in college, something changed.

I ended up graduating high school a year early. I went off to college at seventeen, commuting from my parents’ house every day. I knew what I wanted to do: I wanted to be an astrobiologist, searching for extraterrestrial life in the stars above. Over long summer between high school and college I had the chance to visit the University of Washington (Seattle) and tour the astrobiology program there. It was a graduate program, and I figured I’d head there after my undergraduate work was finished. In order to prepare, I would dual-major in biology and physics. I was excited. I was ready. Everything would go according to plan.

Then I took nineteen credits my first trimester.

The typical maximum load for undergraduates allowed at my college was eighteen credits. In fact, you had to get special dispensation in the form of an adviser signature to take more. The exception was the first quarter freshman year, because of the required major orientation class. But I figured that hey, I was a good student. I could handle this!

Looking back, two hard science majors was a bit of a doozy. Couple that with the culture shock between high school and college, and you can probably see where this is going. I was used to school being easy, so I was wholly unprepared for the work load I found myself under. I don’t even remember specifics, like if there was a particular class that drove me over the edge. I just remember wandering through the quarter in a vague haze of panic, as I attempted to do all the assignments. Read all the books. Go to all the classes. Succeed at all the things.

Unsurprisingly, something snapped.

Looking back, I can’t tell you what it was that caused it, the apocryphal straw that broke this camel’s back. All I know is that something changed, and suddenly school wasn’t fun any more. School became work. School became a chore. School became a thing to be tolerated, to be wandered through, getting from Point A to Point B as painlessly as possible.

And I don’t think I’ve ever fully recovered.