Until I was old enough to know that something was wrong with it, I read four, five hours a day. Every inch of free time (yes, I measured my free time in inches), every moment I wasn't at school or asleep or eating dinner or in the car (I got carsick if I did anything in cars besides stare out the window, reciting streets - I guess that's sort of reading, too). I learned early, at about 3, so there was more time for me to read in blissful ignorance before the awareness of social norms came up on me and I realized that people were supposed to do other things sometimes, too.

Before I realized that, I don't remember a time when I felt bored or unsatisfied while reading. I think the boredom and the drive to do other things came from outside. As I realized other kids played Nintendo. (Once I tried Nintendo, I was immediately hooked - I can still beat anyone at any of the original Marios - try me.) As I realized other kids were in softball leagues, or went camping with their parents. Everyone has a drive to fit in, so as soon as I figured out I didn't, I wanted to - even though, left alone, I probably could have read, and played the piano, and drawn forever.

Sometimes I wish society had laid off. Now, when I write music, I feel this push to record it. And when I record it, I get frustrated, because it doesn't sound the way my voice sounds in my head - the music isn't as easy to play as it is for me to write, and hear and organize in my brain, and it comes out clumsy, stunted by my inability to understand recording/mixing technology. If I hadn't come to know that people record what's in their heads, make money off it, compare it to what comes from other peoples' heads, stress over deadlines, stress over accomplishing something - I might have just been able to be happy sitting down at the piano at my leisure, playing in that creative dreamworld I used to occupy, until I felt finished, and then I could move on, and not have to feel like it needed to be more than that.

I can't read anymore either, without either thinking that I need to be doing something more productive or that I need to be making 'something' out of my reading, like turning it into a job: book reviewer, novelist, professional insufferable literary snob, whatever. Writing this blog even makes me feel sick sometimes when I read other people's blogs and think, this person lives a more exciting life than I do. This person writes down their experiences more accurately than I do. Competition. Achievement. Blah blah blah.

It has become confusing because I'm not sure if I can escape the cycle, so I think, I might as well dive into it. I think this a lot when I'm around my family, who imply in a myriad of ways, intentional and not, that I am wasting my talent (whatever that talent may be). As I write this, I don't see how enjoying myself without putting pressure on is a waste of anything at all, but mired in my family, who are all doctors and lawyers and psychiatrists and teachers and other such things, and who get really huge fake grins on their faces when I say I'm a bus dispatcher, I start thinking, yeah, I AM wasting this as-yet-unnamed talent. I should go to grad school! I should write lots of papers to compete with other students' papers and go into a challenging field somewhere and think about work all the time, even when I'm sleeping, and make a lot of money and buy a lot of things that I slowly become unable to live without, and if I lose my job I will think back on how much I made in 2008 and think, how the fuck is it possible to live on such little money?

I may sound like I'm exaggerating and/or being sarcastic, and I am, but at the same time, I think that's probably what I'll end up doing. All of the above things are true, and aren't ideal, but at the same time, society is here, its presence is there in my brain, and it's not leaving. I do feel like I need a 'challenge', like I need to 'make something' of myself, like I need to 'exercise my brain' and have a 'purpose', and yes, even though I know somewhere deep in my brain that these things are silly enough to merit quotes, I also know that the need to fulfill them isn't going away, and probably will never go away.