Life Will Change

I grew up a lonely child, most of my childhood and teen years I found anyone willing to tolerate me and stuck to them like glue. During lunch I remember having anxiety over not having anyone to sit and eat with. In the end I realized I was somewhat weird, different, that I did not quite fit in with everyone. Everything did not suck though, I remember really, really enjoying reading. In the beginning due to not knowing where to get access to books, I read school books. I remember science being my favorite. Due to this I tended to have a leg up when it came to school and I was regarded as the weird smart kid. This just made me even more lonely and additionally put a chip on my shoulder.

Thus my original love affair began, books allowed me to relate to the characters in the story. I read anything I could get my hands on, history, manga, fantasy, sci-fi. Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball was one of the stories I adored the most, the characters, the world and all the powerups. It took child me for a wild and fantastical ride, transported me to a world were everything was possible, were the characters had control over their fates.

To this day I still love Dragon Ball because of my initial exposure as a kid, it truly captured my childhood imagination. Due to this I ended up reading tons more books, escaping to different realities at each turn of the page. Books like the Red Pyramid, Percy Jackson, The Golden Compass, Eragon… No matter what happened, the words soothed the constant loneliness I felt.

This eventually led to me writing my own stuff, I fondly remember listening to Burn by Ellie Goulding while typing away at my fantasy novel. (got to page 50 before I gave up) I remember telling my mother, teachers, friends that I wanted to become an author. It started to give me a point of contact with other people and I stopped being as lonely. I’m not blaming anyone, as it is my own responsibility, but I stopped writing. People kept telling me there was no pay in being an author, it was a risky route, focus on school instead. Going by that, I defiantly did my own research and while there was a sentimental feeling to the words of friends and family… The internet was 10 times worse. You have no hope earning any decent living as an author, grow up, you are better of doing something else.

Since then I decided I was wrong. The adults were right, I should stop being so weird, I have to become like everyone else. I started hiding what I did in my own time and stopped expressing my own opinions. Why would they matter, I thought to myself. Since then I made a persona, handcrafted to protect me. Interactions with others from that point on stopped being authentic, I became more reserved. Life started moving on autopilot and the magic of life disappeared. Anxiety and loneliness became a daily aspect of life, trying to fit in was even worse for my self esteem than proudly being different. I lost the wide eyed childhood curiosity and love of life. I remember playing ludicrous amounts of League of Legends, this was an escape from life.

That was until one day a friend told me about a game, Persona 5. I had the Ps4 at the time which was another one of my escapes. My friend decided to borrow me the game because he liked it so much. Before playing the game I remember listening to the soundtrack and absolutely loving it. Booting the game up, it had this flair it oozed of the magic I had lost. Persona 5’s theme is one of rebellion. Accepting what’s behind the mask, the good, the weird and the ugly and striving to fulfill one’s ideals however childish they may seem. Nothing has ever recaptured the feeling I felt when the characters came face to face with the people who put them down while “Life Will Change” played in the background. It slowly made me regain the once lost magic, I started taking care of my self and started pursuing passion projects. Of course as any good story, it does not end there…

I would love to say I watched Joker level up in the game and decidedly did that for myself, changing my life in the process. It did give me back some of the life energy I used to have but I was still far from solving any of my problems. The long period of inactivity and autopilot had made me lose confidence in my skills (for good reason).

And so the next phase of starting a project but never finishing one began. I enjoyed working on each project but when they started becoming real I bailed. The doubts that had once made me stop resurfaced, there’s no point, this sucks let’s do something else! This has continued to the present day and I still have not made a single finished project. Even when I started self improvement, got a decent physique, improved my discipline and everything else, I still did not finish a single project.

Outwardly all the problems were solved, it looked like I had finally got my life together. That life had finally changed. Yet something felt off. I had just outsourced my thinking to someone else, I was living life not on my terms but on someone else’s terms. I had just gotten really good at it. A beautiful lie was woven, one in which even I started believing. The lack of confidence was still there, I had just built a house on a shaky foundation without realizing it.

One of the projects I started and never finished is this letter I am writing right now. One of my self improvement arcs was becoming a Youtuber and making content. One of the first things I wanted to write and record was this. Yet I never could, I lacked the confidence I thought I could just send it off into the future. Yes, future me would be so much better at everything, let him handle it so I don’t mess this up! What a lie. (From future you, you will never be ready, you will never be good enough you just have to full send it!)

For life to change, you need to face some uncomfortable truths about yourself. Change is inherently a difficult thing. I guess what I am trying to say is, you are not perfect. You won’t ever be, and running away from making mistakes will not help you grow. Making all the choices expected of you, won’t make you grow. Doing as everyone tells you to do, won’t make you grow. In the end only you can face the brutal reality of life, nobody will come to save you. You only get what you fight tooth and nail for. Real confidence only comes to those who prove to themselves that they are willing to fight no matter what.

The original script I wrote 2 years ago was titled: Make Life a Video game. I still love the idea of living life like a video game. Only problem with the phrasing is that it was not opinionated enough. Yes, make it a game. BUT make it YOUR game. Nobody else but you will play it, so make rules that are advantageous to yourself and remove all the unnecessary boundaries and rules that are placed on you by others. (the metaphorical ones not actual ones 🤖)

In the end, nobody can tell you how to live, and if they did you would have to deal with all the consequences of that, good or bad. Live life in a bold fashion, do not be scared to say “I was here” because of what it might make others think. It is human to want to say “I lived and I mattered”.

Today’s food for thought by Frank Sinatra: “I faced it all, and I stood tall and did it my way" or: “For what is a man, what has he got? If not himself, he has naught.”

Suhayb, Neunetic 🤖🤖

Ps: I stopped writing the newsletter the last few weeks. I won’t make any excuses. I will however state on thing, content from me will be slightly different going forward.

Ps: Very personal letter this week, I don’t know if this will be any useful for anyone, but at least I will finally close that chapter of my life. And this is also written as a promise to myself, I will finish the comic I started no matter what. However much work or time has to be put in, I will not stop on it until I feel like it is finished and I have the physical copy in my hands. (there is a limit to this of course, I won’t put it in development purgatory either…) Look forward to it!🤖🤖