Jenneral HQ

comedown

What I put on hold to write for a month

What I received

What I learned about my writing

What I learned about life outside writing

Leaving the oasis

What a terribly wonderful month. I loved it all and never wanted it to end. I wrote many things I wanted to, and even squeezed in an art project. I made new friends and reconnected with old ones. I got to spend a month living in Lighthaven. And like many others who came from far away, I felt recurring heartbreak at the abundance on offer.

Comedowns are common after any sort of time away from normal life. I paid upfront, and then I lived in a frictionless and utopian dreamworld where every need was catered to in a beautiful mediterranean climate. Now I am back in a land where the ground and sky are both icy grey slush, I have a day job, I must vacuum my own floors, and food and masseurs do not magically appear at regular intervals. But if only that was a fully adequate explanation for how I feel in the aftermath.

A rolling game we played through Inkhaven: on a massive whiteboard wall, write down each year of the 21st century, and start listing the best thing of each year: songs, video games, movies, blog posts. Then, watch as your picks get slowly replaced by the other residents over time.

I replaced the 2024 pick for blog posts, putting Internet Princess's No Good Alone on the board. I picked this piece because I adore Internet Princess, and she writes about many missing moods that I think rationalists should think about, at least sometimes.

Here's an excerpt from that blog post:

Isolationists have one very strong argument on their side — when you’re alone, there’s no one there to hurt you, even accidentally. There’s no one there to throw your own flaws into stark relief. There’s no one who you might hurt with bursts of uncontrollable emotion or human carelessness. It’s hard to be hurt, and perhaps even harder to hurt the people you love — why not cut the risk, lock the doors, and live a life of robotic, impersonal, action-oriented optimization?  ... People, on the other hand, challenge us. They infuse our life with stakes. You can hurt a friend or partner or lose them forever if you refuse vulnerability or reject growth — the same cannot be said of a therapist, for instance, which makes them far safer companions.

I love this piece, but I somehow didn't think it applied to me; or if it did, it applied to me only a smidge. I don't chisel away at myself in a dark solitary room to try to make myself adequate and presentable to others, I'm rational enough to know how counterproductive that is. Plus, how can I be said to lock myself away if I run weekly meetups, and have friends all over the world that I travel to see regularly? And I am sooo good at being vulnerable, I even run authentic relating games!

But I happened to reread it on my first night back, and felt a sharp sting of recognition.

Here's what happened, I think: I had left my contented little oasis with my little meetups and my nice apartment and my self-sufficient routine. I went to a place where people I trust (people in the same community as me, people who have the same values I do) would take care of all of my needs for a month. Cradled by them, I wrote forty thousand words, discovered that people like my writing, got feedback from writers I admire, nursed several crushes, got hugs and midnight conversations and implicit permission to join every conversational circle I saw, discovered that I can socialize an insane amount every single day and not get tired of human contact, and concluded that I am not an introvert.

What a wonderful experience. What a priceless gift. What a horrible realization, that previous to this, I've been living at arm's length from everyone. I had the controls for a faucet of human connection, and I guarded it jealously. I left it at a slow drip because I thought it was all that I needed, and all that I could handle.

When I gave up that control, life rushed in — connection, recognition, even a little romance. To my credit, I was able to accept some of the deluge. But I am shy and I never had much practice, and I don't think I took advantage as much as I should have.

But even the amount I was able to bear accepting was beautiful. Even in a program where it wasn't the main thing, when everyone had to keep excusing themselves to go write, when I myself struggled with feelings of alienation and inadequacy, I felt so incredibly lucky to be in a community with these people, to have found them.

And when I returned home after a month, when I looked at it with fresh eyes, it started to look less like an oasis and more like the world's most luxurious solitary confinement cell.

Now I want to say yes to more than is available here. More life, more connection, more romance. A friend once told me that it's wise to move cities often, because each city whispers a different thing to you, and each city brings out different facets of yourself. I adore the version of me that emerged in Berkeley. I want to nurture her more. And I don't think there is enough for her here.

#diary #longform