“i’m a perfectionist”
“no you aren’t.”
“yeah i am. i want everything i have done to be perfect.”
“but you never do anything”
“yeah. that’s because I don’t want to DO anything. I always only want to HAVE DONE things.”
“…”
“that’s what ‘perfect’ means, right”
Mildly serious on this joke post… is this a common feeling? Because “I don’t want to DO things, I just want to HAVE DONE things” is pretty much how I would describe my baseline attitude to life.
There’s periods where it lets up and I’m actually enjoying doing stuff. But even then there is this sense of urgency, of Needing To Finish This before the activity stops being rewarding. Because it will. Wanting to do something is the exception, not the norm.
Generally, I don’t find doing stuff rewarding. Any stuff. Chores, hobbies, anything. I do things to have done them, to scratch them off the list, to tick the box on the great Are You A Functional Human questionnaire. The boxes that have the least consequences are the ones I fail to tick the most -so hobbies typically fall off first. And sometimes I’m still not ticking enough boxes to avoid problems, which sucks.
I’ve never been really sure how common or “normal” this attitude was, because I grew up with people who also had this attitude, and most of my friends who aren’t like this aren’t exactly “normal” iykwim.
I mean, it’s a complicated question. There are a few different levels to it, and right now I find them kinda hard to put into words, and I am also very much not probably the best source to ask on “what is normal,” or “how much that matters,” but… hm.
- “Lack of joy in doing activities” is often viewed as a symptom of depression. But what exactly this idea of “joy” means, to a therapist trying to diagnose?– is it pleasure in the exact present moment of being in the middle of the activity? fascination with the puzzle of figuring out how I’m going to complete this step? exhilaration of discovery as I do figure it out? excitement as I anticipate the satisfaction of the next step being done? hopeful fantasizing about what the final product will be like? I don’t know.
- The only one of those things I actually pretty much never feel, is the first one. I do not really know what “living in the moment,” or “enjoying the moment,” would even mean.
- Partly it’s a sort of… literal-minded, Zeno’s Paradox feeling. A “moment”, to me, means a slice of the universe without the dimension of time. As a point is to a line, or as a plane is to three-dimensional space. Experiencing any feeling takes a certain amount of time. To say I’m feeling anything, in a moment, is as nonsensical as saying an animated figure is moving within a single frame of the animation.
- Sure, I can take it a little less literally– I can try defining a “moment” the way I think most other people define it– as a short period of time containing the present and a small amount of the past and the future. This confuses me, because people are never clear about just how much time is supposed to be included in that definition. But I can sometimes guess.
- For example, if someone is asking if I can enjoy the sensation of eating chocolate, “in the moment”… then I think they probably mean the amount of time it takes me to eat a piece of chocolate.
- But even taking it that way, my answer is… not exactly a strong “yes.” I mean, I do enjoy eating chocolate. But the enjoyment happens fast– too fast to identify quite where it is. Somewhere in the rush of past memory, present sensation, and anticipation of the next bite.
- And slowing down ruins it. Trying to eat the chocolate slowly, to “savor” it, just turns the rush of pleasure into the torment of denying myself.
- And if I try to clear my mind as I savor it, to find the feeling, to focus on what the pleasure feels like– well, analyzing it also ruins it. Shatters the illusion. Like looking too closely at the tiny dots that make up an image printed on paper. Suddenly they aren’t a beautiful picture anymore, they’re just dots.
- So I think I’ve learned not to think much about whether I’m enjoying myself.
- I do get strongly motivated to do things that would be considered hobbies– not my job or my household chores (which I can motivate myself to do, but it’s harder)… but activities that are usually things people do for fun.
- And I do have feelings during them that I consider positive. But describing these feelings is… well… strange.
- When I’m motivated to do a thing, the main feeling I get is… probably just best described as “motivation.” Something in me won’t sit still until I start doing the thing.
- Which is almost always a creative project. I am rarely motivated to do any activity that doesn’t involve making something. Even watching a movie is usually a thing to occupy my eyes and mind while my hands work on a craft, and I get unbearably restless if I try to watch a movie without that.
- The act of doing a craft activity carries me from one step to the next with a cycle of feeling that’s… well, I’m not sure if it’s pleasure or enjoyment. It’s probably best described as “urge” and “satisfaction.” But even the “satisfaction” is more “the satisfaction of relieving an urge,” more than any sort of quiet contentment.
- I color this area of the drawing, or finish making this link in the wire chain, or crochet this line of stitches, because I am compelled to. And when I finish, there’s a hit of reward chemicals in my brain because I completed the compulsion.
- And at the end of the project– or the end of a significant part of it– if I think I did it well– there’s also a very strong hit of satisfaction there. I can definitely be pleased with my own work. But if there is pleasure in the process of doing it, that’s harder to define.
- I do know, though, that if I get interrupted in the middle of doing it, while still motivated, the frustration is intense. So bad that it has strained my relationships.
- And yes, there’s often a frantic feeling to it– because yes, there is the possibility that if I can’t finish the project while this motivation lasts, it could vanish for a long time.
- I have very specific moods or mind-sets that feel motivation to do certain things. I don’t really know how to choose to put myself in the right mood or mindset.
- My former partner (who’s plural, and now has other partners who are plural) says this really looks like a system of alters to her. But if so, I’m not sure what exactly I (or the various parts of me) can get from that understanding of it. Trying to think of my mindsets as different personalities doesn’t seem to make any of them more accessible.
Also feel like adding here: