I moved to Spain. I immediately started travelling, visiting people, and doing a lot of social activities with friends and family. Slowly over the course of a month I realized I was getting sick of it. I was too active, too hectic. I didn't have to do much, but I still wanted to do these things. I believed they were the key to happiness. "I am so lucky to have places to visit, friends to be with".
Resistance to change
When I realized the problem, I was already in too deep. I had already planned so many routes. I had already broken my food habits and eaten so bad, and sleeping so bad, that I was feeling terribly.
I thought since I had already travelled years before, I would be able to handle this easily. Turns out habits don't work that way and a year or two can already break this. My perception of myself and my reality were two different things. I wasn't as strong as I thought, or as flexible as I thought.
Sudden crash
And after an unlucky run with covid where I couldn't even stand from my bed for close to a week, when I had been super hectic for a full month before, moving around nonstop and being hypersocial... It was a very hard crash. From being with people everyday to being rejected for having covid, to being weak, unable to even leave my room.
In less than a month I had built such a strong habit of being with people, that this down week was like a hammer's blow to my mood. I legitimately believe I entered a period of depression during that time and it took me weeks after coming back from my hectic hypersocial trip to feel a sense of normalcy.
Being alone
I had never lived alone. Ever. I had never been alone. Now I live alone. The difference was huge. I knew, in the way I "know" that bacteria exist, that galaxies are big and microchips are made in Taiwan. I haven't seen those things, and I had never been alone. We all "know" things we haven't seen.
I definitely didn't know how it felt. Sometimes it was very overwhelming, sometimes a bit sad.
I have now adapted a lot better after close to a year of being by myself. I still miss people but a lot less. And I won't be alone again in a few months.
Coping mechanisms
It's not easy. What I did was a bit crazy. Left my family, all I knew, some good living conditions, to go live in a cramped place in the middle of nowhere, just because it was "ze first world". A chance to have a passport and a better future.
I had always thought about this topic, how much of the present is it worth it to sacrifice for a future? I know that drug/gambling addicts are trapped in the present, and even if deep down they know they are destroying their future, they want to enjoy the moment. Some people do the opposite.
What I thought before:
I have the "fortune" of being somewhat emotionally inhibited. I can't feel almost anything most of the time. I can easily "sacrifice" my present because the worse living conditions are almost meaningless emotionally in comparison to the better ones.
What I realized:
Quality of life is a real thing. Just like I didn't realize how it felt to be alone, or what I was doing when I was being hyper-social in a temporary period immediately followed by a period of being hyper-alone. I didn't realize I had to pick a place with a living room, or that I needed a place to rest. I had absolutely forgotten my previous habits.
I had a good life before, and understanding what made this good life "good" was essential. I had a hammock to read by a garden, I had anything I wanted to eat or drink, I had people very close by to hug, I had a territory that felt like "mine" (my hometown, my home, my things, my family), where I could go and safely be.
And then here I am in a place where nothing is mine, where I have no comfort beyond a bed and a desk, etc. It took me an unfortunately long time to realize that I had to think.
Hectic procrastination
But I didn't want to think. I just wanted to be comfortable, whatever it takes. I started gaming, watching Netflix, gaming more, trying to rebuild what little comfort I had before, that sense of self-ownership.
I would fill every tiny moment of my life with dopamine. I don't think I've ever watched so much YouTube.
I even procrastinated from the things I enjoyed before. Intentionally? I don't know. I haven't written down a dream after moving to Europe. I haven't done a full painting. I completely abandoned writing, Hive, art. I completely let go of all the "cores" of my existence. I have an Obsidian vault with millions of words written down over the better half of a decade, yet I haven't even touched it after moving to Europe.
Every moment is filled with dopamine. I'm still coping from my enormous loss. I thought "if you don't find friends in the first 6 months you will enter a period of depression". I didn't realize the depression would come after one month of being abroad, after one week of being alone. I didn't realize I would adapt to a neutral state of pure unadultered tricklingly slow and seemingly insignificant coping that would take over my entire life over the course of a year, to the point where I felt a few days ago I couldn't even clean my room.
The future
I hope this realization will be useful to start going back down to the basics. Writing dreams, being okay with being by myself, understanding the world around me insofar as it is relevant to my well-being and the investments I want to make on myself. While I need to make money, I don't need or want it to be soulless. This year I've had enough soullessness to last me for a decade. It's time to sprinkle back some meaning into my life.
Dreams
The post was about dreams it's honestly just a short statement that is the most important to me. The thing I find the most painful is that dreams made a very significant part of my life and shaped my enjoyment of art, literature and imagination, and my life felt pretty cool with them around.
Writing down my dreams is a prerequisite for remembering my dreams. The dreams you don't write down, you forget, and you may even be tricked into thinking you "didn't dream", you just didn't process it as a part of reality and while you perceived them you swiftly threw them away.
If you read my dreams, which are abundant in my blog, they are always very detailed and big. That's because I had a habit of writing them down. The more you write down your dreams, the better you remember them, and the more cohesive your understanding of them is.
When I started writing down my dreams, I would only remember tiny parts. A mood, a thought, a face. I know this because I have a dream diary dating back before 2016. For months, my dream notes were super tiny. "I vaguely remember there was someone important, like a guardian", or "I think there was someone whistling."
Building my ability to remember my dream in detail wasn't a thing I did over the course of a week or a month. It took months to reach the basic state and probably close to a year to reach the "consistently detailed and cohesive" stage.
To stop writing them is practically a crime against myself. I know I had a hard time, but the hard time is over. I should take some time to write them down, at least in small detail.