Thoughts from March 7, 2001

Fears, fears. I just can’t get enough fears. I also can’t decide which fear I like best. It’s as if I’m choosing an accessory for my personality. Which color goes best with self-doubt? I have decided I do fear criticism and I don’t know why. I didn’t grow up in a house where a great biting analysis of my every word squelched my thoughts. Where this fear comes from, I do not know. If you have a reason I haven’t considered, please call 1-800-CLUE-BRIAN-IN. Many times, when I’m at work, my fear is not knowing if I should work on what I’m working on. If I’m coming up with something new at work, I always question whether my boss would want me working on such a thing. New things, especially at work, are not always encouraged.

This doesn’t only exist at work. In my creative moments at home, working on an animation, writing a story, or creating a piece of music, I usually end a project before it’s finished. If I take the time to show someone the progress on one of my creations, I usually preface it with great explanations of why it’s not perfect (or finished). I’m also a bit of a perfectionist. That doesn’t help in presenting the imperfections of a partially created concept. I know I worry too much, but it helps me get over the fact that I don’t worry enough. I believe in myself, but most of the time, it’s the potential of myself and not my current self. I know I could create some of the greatest animations, etc., the world has ever known, but I haven’t done that yet.

I’m 30 years old. That’s right, I said it. I’m not at my mid-life crisis point yet, but I am right in the middle of my late beginning-life crisis. I feel like my life is in the middle of a math class that will not be useful to me later, so I’m only barely paying attention. I’m paying attention to do well on the test, but all I’m really doing is preventing myself from falling asleep during class.

I shouldn’t be surprised. Even in high school, I was physically in class every day, but my mind was on my post-school-day activities. Every once in a while, I would create something in class that was noted as clever or exceptional. I enjoyed these times. Life was good. Apparently, it wasn’t enough to push me into joining one of the nerdy clubs at school. They were for nerds that went home and practiced their nerdy activities so they could get more credits in classes to get into a better college. I went home and practiced so I could impress … well … a couple people, every once in a while, who weren’t in my immediate home and weren’t named Porge (my childhood cat).

Let’s flash forward to a couple of minutes ago (hey, I was talking about the past in the last paragraph so a couple of minutes ago is forward from that moment). I was in the restroom. I know you’re thinking this paragraph will not be the great literature of the last paragraph – and you’d be right. I was thinking about my high school days and my college days. My most horrified moments in class were during tests. This anxiety was not from the test itself; it was from the silence during the test. My stomach would make noises. I couldn’t stop them. Believe me, I tried. Sometimes, I would have preferred death to the embarrassment of my talking stomach.

And now, back to the restroom. I have realized recently that part of my stomach problems were from my … (Warning – the rest of this paragraph should only be viewed by medical doctors and people who can handle gross things. You’ll notice I didn’t say “very”.) … refusal to blow anything out of my back end more than once a day. To be quite honest, I really don’t know what I would have done in grade school, junior high, or high school. I never, if at all, saw the inside of the restrooms at school. In college, I could use them, but only under certain circumstances. My biggest problem had to do with noise. If it was silent in the restroom, I worried about every trickle of water that came out of my body. I was especially conscious of noises out of my back end. I’m over that and I’m actually blowing things out of my back end at work now. Am I proud of myself? You bet! Way to go, me!