The Point of It All

I think a person’s ability to achieve their dreams depends entirely on their ability to obsess over something and be fairly well oblivious to other things; distractions, alternative callings, demoralization, etc.

I don’t have that.

I don’t know if it’s because I struggle with depression, and the resulting apathy gets in the way of my ability to be consumed by something or if I just haven’t found that one thing that really drives me.

If I was more obsessed with sewing, it wouldn’t matter that there’s not space to cut fabric or that I have to give up the ability to move around my room in order to set up a sewing table. I would sacrifice comfort and space, and I would just sew.

But I get distracted by the fact that without adequate space, cutting becomes inaccurate; and inaccurate pieces fit together poorly, making an ill-fitting, ill-made garment that I consider to be a waste of time and fabric.

If I were more obsessed with drawing, it wouldn’t matter that there isn’t space; it wouldn’t matter that the room is dimply lit; it wouldn’t matter that I have no desk.

But again, I get distracted; poor lighting affects your color choices. What looks good in the dim light may look awful in day-light or under a good craft light—no one is going to look at your finished product in dim, crappy lighting all the time, and you run the risk of ruining your art and wasting resources.

I could draw on the computer, but drawing on a laptop with no desk [or chair] starts to really damage my neck, arm and shoulder. Plus, I prefer sketching on paper, scanning in and then coloring digitally.

If I were more obsessed my comfort wouldn’t matter, or I wouldn’t notice.
I obsess over a boy sometimes--but I can’t really make a career or hobby out of being a girlfriend, at least not without sacrificing personal ethics and my sense of dignity.

Sometimes, I try to write—but I lose the story about halfway through the 3rd page when whatever first sparked the idea just suddenly blinks out like it never existed at all.

And I look out over my piles of fabric, my boxes of beads, my markers and Bristol board and thread in every color—and I feel lost in it; daunted. It’s all piles of bright, hideous chaos and nowhere to put it all, no space to add a touch of method to these great heaps of madness.

It would be nice to obsess. It would be nice to feel driven.

But things slowly begin to feel like a waste of time. I question what I’m doing; for what purpose? To what end?

What, exactly, is the point?