Greener grass

I am obsessed with making things work.
Big surprise, I'm sure. I didn't pick engineering out of a hat or some such nonsense.
Truth is, I chose the most difficult degree I had interest in pursuing. I wanted the challenge, and the flexibility that would bring.




Of course, life happens. My motives lost clarity, for a very long time.
Hell, it's not new. I constantly question myself. I say question, but you should understand that it means criticize. I can never do something purely right. Never.

That's part of where the obsession comes from, I think. I get a kind of rush from making something work when it didn't before - cars, computers, random household things, even people to some degree. I get this sort of tunnel vision with it.
It's crippling, especially with people. People do not want to be helped. They want their problems, because after enough time the problems become what they use to define themselves. Take away the problems, and there's nothing left - or so the fear goes.

But here I am, out trying to fix the world, one thing at a time.
I figure that's what killed my motivation, slowly realizing how naive it was to want to handle all of that weight. That insufferable weight, knowing that no matter how far I could go, it would never be enough. For awhile it fed in to my quest for perfection, never being good enough just clicked.

It's tiring, though. You want validation, need it, even if only a little bit - even if only from yourself.
Enough wear and tear from that weight, eventually you collapse.
I never really got back up, did I?

I mean really, here I am - National Merit Scholar, Phi Beta Kappa Scholar, etc ad nauseum - in the 5th year of a degree that should have taken 3, with a mediocre GPA at best in classes that still have yet to present any real conceptual challenge. The simple fact is that I don't show up. I'm only now reaching classes where I can't fake it above the average student's performance.

You'd think, way I act, that I'm alright with that. But it disgusts me.
Why not stop? Turn my brain back on, so to speak?

I've been trying to figure that out for years now, only to reach the inevitable conclusion: I don't know.

It has something to do with being burned out, tired of being resented for being smart, curious how it felt to be a little more 'normal.'
Catastrophic waste of time, isn't it?

"If ignorance is bliss, Father said, shouldn't you be looking blissful?
You should check to see if you have the right kind of ignorance;
if you aren't getting the same benefits that other people get from acting stupid,
you should go back to what you always were: too smart for your own good."

Maybe it's the drugs, finally working. Who knows.
I think it's time to try something new.

- C