think of a project is a longterm relationship or friendship. I know people compare them to marathons a lot, but marathons is work and effort and blind commitment. A relationship, however, is about enjoying the mundane every day company even when there's nothing exciting going on. The reality is 99% of a project's reality is going to be boring, mundane, banal, routine, and unexciting -- and that's a feature.

When you hang out with your friends, do you particularly care what you're doing together other than the fact you're just making memories? and a really good friendship/relationship is one that boosts your energy every day just because you have it. Much like how a lot of people can only seem to serially date in shallow relationships (hook-up culture), if you only love a project during the honeymoon period, you're basically just serially dating with ideas that you dump after a month. In the analogy that can mean you're seeing the project as a means to an end or filling some kind of lack in your life or skill, not as a fixture of your life that you're building and want to nurture and have a future with.

A longterm project in practical reality is a lot like attending school. It's your life for, like, X-number of years, everything about you is devoted to accomplishing what you're studying, and then one day you graduate. If you're only doing a project for the emotional thrill then that's perfectly fine but you will absolutely move on as soon as the novelty wears off.

also: when I was younger I used to tell people: you never know what you're capable of until you start and you won't understand what you're capable of until you finish

I am rather confused you think I'm managing a balance when what prompted this question is literally me saying I don't game as often as I used to because it takes me up to a month to get back to a work groove and therefore I've only really gamed when I'm stuck in a depressive swing. The reality is I don't manage any kind if balance, I just do my best.

But if you're asking me how I can write out my thoughts without losing steam, bruh that's just who I am, I'm almost 40 and what you see now is the best I can make myself shut up and I feel the attempt is a collosal failure. Ejecting critical thoughts structurally from the ether of my mind has always been my default state of existence.

In fact I wish you guys asked me questions more often, especially about my stories and characters, so I have an excuse to ramble at length but my inbox is usually pretty quiet. I'm blueballing.

oh trust me I can write out my opinions for days, if you're in front of me you're basically held hostage as I explain to you impromptu essays about all the shit I like and think about constantly. time and energy is not the reason or obstacle, it takes more effort to keep my thoughts IN if anything.

it's people getting in my comments annoying me is why I don't bless you all with my objectively rad media commentary 24/7.

look if you remember my tumblr days you understand why I just decided it was not worth it to deal with strangers having emotional breakdowns in my inbox because I said an opinion on a show/game/movie they shaped their entire identity around. it's a shame because you're all missing out

man I am sorry you're going through it. been there, done that, and will probably be there again.

not sure what your diagnosis is but being bipolar myself I definitely understand how much it sucks when you have no control over the state of your internal world or the condition of your mental health and you just have to do your best to survive it and always aspire to work toward a world where you don't have to anymore.

if sharing my experiences helped you feel like the pressure evaporated just a little bit, I'm glad. please take care of yourself. however you find rest and hope is valid, gaming or otherwise, and I hope it gets easier as time goes on.

First: Please, absolutely seek therapy. I think everybody should see therapy, it's a good investment in yourself and finding the balance you want. Therapy isn't a fix -- nothing is a fix -- but it's a step toward recovery.

Second: I do agree it seems taboo that people openly love their work, I've been told a lot I'm up my own ass and narcissistic and arrogant for being so unapologetic (I think the only adjective out of that list I agree with is arrogant, I totally am, which I'm fine with). Still, it's never stopped me, because the one thing I also understood all my life is people who dislike themselves will always dislike others who don't, and there's absolutely no harm to being happy about your own art to absolutely anybody -- but there's a lot of harm in the opposite, especially to yourself.

Third: Yes, life is terrifying, and stress can be overwhelming. Please know managing stress doesn't mean that it stops being a burden. There are plenty of days where I succumb to it still and the best I can do to stave it off is rest and play video games. I find the best way to learn how to manage the pressures of life is to accept the pressures will always be there, make peace with that, and then do your best to not war with it. In an office there's always the coworkers that annoy the shit out of you, but you still have to work with them, so fighting with them will only make that harder.

Fourth: I know leaving a toxic but familiar situation (lifestyle, relationship, habits, you name it) is intimidating because you don't know what anything outside of that looks like. And that's okay.

In fact, I let that be the thing that guided me in the past 5 years. When I decided I had to change my relationship 180 with my drawing habits, I confronted the fact that if anything I did felt familiar, predictable, or in any way in my control then I was doing it wrong, because it meant I was still operating in what I already knew. But a better outcome is one that would be completely new to me, so if something felt foreign or foolish, I knew I was going in the right direction. It wasn't always the answers, but it was exploration and in the exploring is what opened up my world to something that was beyond my imagination, which was the point.

You don't know what a better life feels like, if you did you'd be living it. So the first step towards it is to allow yourself to be a pioneer and discover what that looks like.

Anyway, I'm glad you're finding hope. If there's anything I can do, is to encourage you to be brave about that hope.

As sarcastic as it may be to say, a good way to curb stress is to just not engage with stress.

I don't mean ignoring or repressing. I try to think of stress as a really annoying jerk trying to distract me and grab at my attention, like a rude commentor or troll. And the best way to deal with those is to remind yourself of your real priorities and what's important to you and refocus on that instead. Like, do I actually want to waste time indulging in fighting this idiot, or do I want to invest my time in something I actually care about?

The more you get in the habit of training yourself at redirecting your focus on what's important, it just gets a lot easier to acknowledge stress exists, and you have to manage or address it to some extent (in the analogy of a troll, blocking and maybe venting at a friend about how stupid that jerk was), but end of the day all it does is eat your time and emotions because it's also never going to go away. Keeping yourself aware of what you want your time and emotions to be spent on just elevates your general reality.

With regards to responsibilities and obligations, I just generally remind myself I agreed to it, so I can't be a brat about it. Whatever responsibility I have, there's a person on the other side of it who depends on me to follow through, and that person isn't responsible for my resentment nor are they beneath me. I have to respect the dignity of the people around me by respecting the work that is on my shoulders to follow through on.

Because, end of the day, if I'm constantly spending my time on things that are beneath me or I have contempt for, then it doesn't really matter if it's true or not -- I'm the person who's deciding my life should be filled with things that aren't worthy of me, so I'm not being worthy of me.

Professionally, when I agree to a job I try to remove any part of "ugh do I have to, this doesn't interest me at all" out of me and think instead "the person wanted me, specifically, to do this for them, they deserve my respect for having good taste and taking a chance on me" and have that lead me instead.

In that framing, deadlines are still a lot of work and have a lot of pressure/stakes, but I don't really feel the stress about it because all I'm thinking is "I can't let people down, they're believing in me, so come on let's make their day" -- and, well, I'm someone who gets a lot of gratification knowing I made someone else happy. I take a lot of pleasure in literally being of service to others.

I don't really know if this was helpful or concise, but it's reflective of what goes through my head when I'm managing my day to day realities.

to your second question: I'm relatively a sweet tooth (it happens in cycles), and I always love chocolate

huh. I think that quote is poetic but also means absolutely nothing.

'imposter syndrome' is a defined term about the phenomenon of feeling as though you don't deserve recognition, credit or acclaim for the valid and earned labor that you perform. For example, you don't think you deserve a promotion you got because you somehow conned everyone around you to think you're good at your job when the simpler reality is you're good at your job, you just don't recognize that you are.

It's not ambiguous and to redefine it for some kind of allegorical journey of how to manifest a creative future is pretentious, to say the least.

as far as getting rid of it... uh, yes? you can? very easily, actually? because the practical reality to counteract that is to recognize your worth and the worth of your labor. I know because it's been my job for the past 5 years to coach and talk artists through how to excise the toxicity out of the relationship with their creativity.

trust me, 'imposter syndrome' is really not something I deal with or, if I have ever dealt with it, then I dealt with it so efficiently I don't even remember having it. I'm someone who actually does acknowledge I worked and studied hard for the things I made and I have absolutely no problem demanding others to recognize the validity of my work.

I respect Godin has his personal view of how he relates to his own art and power to him, but his thoughts has absolutely nothing to do with an emotional dysfunction that is extremely very treatable with some simple CBT counselling. I'd be extremely cautious of listening to anyone who romanticizes that.

I'm actually not sure if I can provide any deep questions for you, but I can at least tell you I'm constantly motivated to be self-reliant and self-dependent. The last thing I ever want to be is trapped, and I refuse to accept learned helplessness as a reality on principle. I want to be the one to define myself, not have the world or others define me. I firmly believe that, while I may not always have a choice in the circumstances I live through, I do have a choice in how cooperative I am to those circumstances.

So my relationship with SM fundamentally changed when I recognized the bigger forces at play and how much I was cooperating with it, which lead to the inevitable questions of 'why am I complying? what's stopping me from changing the game? what do I actually want for myself here?'

and since I'm a stubborn contrarian I just flipped the bird and decided to figure out how to swim against the tides.

And that I don't think there's anything more you can do other than go "no" and do something different until you figure out what works.