Welcome to Social Anxiety Horror

September has rolled in and hasn’t decided which season it should be yet. This means pre-spooky season is in fully swing. Halloween candy lines grocery store shelves, the craft stores have fake pumpkins galore, and pumpkin spice nonsense as far as the eye can see.

Naturally, I’ve already started hearing buzz around horror movies.

Yesterday, at art club, we all had an in-depth discussion around which horror movies we prefer, which we find comforting, and which we won’t touch with a ten foot pole. Naturally, the recently released Speak No Evil, came up. If you’ve managed to escape the trailers for this one, let me briefly explain the premise: an American family meets an English family on vacation, the English family invites them to their house in the middle of nowhere, and procede to be as creepy as possible. It’s technically a remake of a Dutch movie by the same name or also known as The Guests (likely made because Hollywood thinks Americans are allergic to subtitles) with a few changes.

It’s also an example of the subgenre social anxiety horror (a subgenre so rare that it doesn’t seem to have a TV Tropes page).

Normally, I’d have ascribed this movie as just a psychological horror, but there a few elements that push it into the lesser recognized social horror subgenre. TV Tropes defines psychological horror as “subgenre of horror that aims at creating horrific, paranoiac, suspenseful, or unsettling effects through in-depth use of mental and emotional states or psychological conditions.” From what I’ve come to understand, social anxiety horror differs in the use of social norms to drive the building tension. 

I was first introduced to this subgenre by the YouTube video essayist Super Eyepatch Wolf. His hour and twenty minute video covers several examples of social anxiety horror including literature (Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”), movies (The Guests which I am using instead of the other name to differentiate), and real life social experiments preformed on actual people. As I mulled over the concepts brought to my attention in the video, I came to realize that social anxiety horror is one I am easily disturbed by.

Just because I enjoy horror and have published multiple short stories and poems in the genre doesn’t mean that I love every aspect of it. My preference for horror typically contains some element of supernatural, cosmic, fantasy, or science fiction in it. This is so I have a buffer between what I’m enjoying through media and the possibility of something happening in my real life. I’ve never seen an extra terrestrial (doesn’t mean they don’t exist), but I have had a stalker. 

The closer the horror is to a possible experience, the less likely I am to enjoy it. I recently wrote a blog post about my thoughts on Anna Biller’s gothic romance/horror (horror is the section I found it in at Barnes & Noble) “Bluebeard’s Castle”. I found the book difficult to read at times (spoilers: not just because a cat dies) because I found my anxiety was being triggered. The main villain of the story uses psychology and social norms to manipulate the protagonist, which set off my flight responses. Putting the book down and walking away for a few days was the only way I could finish the book. 

The same response also happened to me for the horror novels “Such a Pretty Smile” by Kristi DeMeester and “A History of Fear” by Lucas Dumas (I made a post about this one). Though those novels contain an element of the supernatural, they also play on social anxiety fears. I could handle the dog creatures and flying devils. I couldn’t handle the homophobia and creepy situations with (fictional) people who were more or less real.

And that’s probably because I realize how easy it is to fall into a bad situation through the manipulation of social norms (see previously alluded to stalker). I’ve been in situations with other people that started out as seemingly normal and then escalated to terrifying. 

Thankfully, I’ve never been physically hurt in these situations, but they have taken a mental toll. It’s likely one of the many reasons I hate dating so much. I feel a lot more comfortable in a group social setting than going off with a person I just met for a one-on-one.

So let me know what you think of social anxiety horror? Should it have a TV Tropes page? What movies, shows, books, stories, or games do you think fit as examples of the subgenre? Did you go see “Speak No Evil” or watched the original “The Guests”? Let me know in the comments.

In you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y’all like hearing from me. 

Until the next week.

Welcome to Fear

 Happy first weekend of Fall. Spooky season is in full swing and Halloween is just around the corner. I’m currently read “Mexican Gothic” by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. I’m about a third of the way through the story and so far it’s hitting all the right notes for my love of spooky atmosphere and gothic tropes. I’m hoping things carry through the whole story.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for the novel I just finished. Luke Dumas’s “A History of Fear” comes out in December, yet I managed to score an advanced reader’s copy through a GoodReads giveaway. It’s premise sounded promising - a young man claiming the devil had made him commit a murder. I love a good murder mystery and the idea of supernatural forces intrigued me.

Sadly, the book didn’t live up to my expectations, falling into some of my least favorite horror tropes and setting off my social anxiety to the extreme. Overall, I didn’t find this book scary or horrific and everything is (purportedly) explained in an afterword.

Don’t get me wrong, this book has some good points. There’s an intense scene in a library that is excellently paced and thoroughly creepy, but this type of horror is rare. If the book had capitalized on those moments, I think I would have had a more enjoyable spooky experience.

I admit that I have my own standards for horror that don’t always align  with what is popular or conventional.

For example, I really like creepy atmosphere and quiet moments in my horror media. This can allow for a bigger build up in a scare or paranoia. These moments without action give me time to reflect and think - or overthink - about what is happening. I still crave that release of buildup and tension, but a solitary character lost in a fog can be just as terrifying as a monster popping up saying “boo”. 

I consider a story scary if it follows me off the pages of a book or the images on a screen and into my everyday moments. What would I do if my family was slowly starving and possibly being stalked by a witch? (The VVitch). Could I battle a button eyed version of my mother? (Coraline). Would I be able to find who the dead person is before dying myself? (Another). Could I defeat ancient Lovecraftian gods and save the multiverse without losing my mind? (Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem) What would I do if my town was suddenly possessed by spirals? (Uzumaki).

Honestly, only Junji Ito could make a spiral scary and he truly succeeds. The scene where the woman realizes that there is a naturally occurring spiral in her ear haunts me. 

When I was little, I couldn’t handle a lot of horror. I had a reoccurring nightmare of Fidget from “The Great Mouse Detective” popping out (if you’ve seen the movie, y’all know the scene) and kidnapping me while I’m trying to find my way home. The movie (with horror veteran actor Vincent Price as the villain) along with “Scooby Doo Where Are You” were my introduction to horror. As long as the scary images were clearly separate from the real world, I enjoyed it (with maybe a nightmare or two).

And then one of my parents thought it would be an excellent idea to show young me “Arachnidphobia”. For some background, I thought spiders were the coolest before watching this movie. After watching it, I wanted nothing to do with the eight legged arachnids. Suddenly, there was no longer the barrier of animation for my young mind and the real world became a little less safe.

As I’ve matured, I’ve found that I still prefer some kind of barrier between me and my horror media. I much prefer ghost stories and creature features to serial killers and psychological thrillers. If my horror story is too “real”, the less I feel like I’m escaping into a story. Real life is full of terrifying things - many I can’t do anything about. The less plausible a scenario, the more likely I am to jump in without questioning the details of the plot that otherwise might cause it to colapse on itself. As soon as my brain can start poking holes into things, I become frustrated rather than entertained.

Again, this is just my opinion. And these preferences aren’t inflexible.

Once I figured out what was going on with the plot of “A History of Fear”, I became less invested and more annoyed with the author’s choices. I almost completely left the plot and instead powered through to finish the book and move on to a new one.

However, one movie that did scare the crap out of me was “Oculus”. In someways it has some similarities to “A History of Fear”, but only surface level. There’s an element of reality to “Oculus”. The story could be about the mental break down of a family. However, the lore and presentation of the movie creates a narrative that takes me out of reality and into the internally logical world the characters are navigating. I completely buy that the mirror is evil. I also buy that the family had a mental breakdown unrelated to the evil mirror. The fact that there’s no explanation that ties up the plot in a neat little bow and spoon feeds me the explanation is a plus. This movie loved rent free in my mind for weeks.

So did the book (and movie) “Coraline”. As did the manga “Uzumaki”. 

Also, the less jump scares a movie or video game has, the better. I don’t have to worry about these too much in books and graphic novels since books don’t make obnoxiously loud sounds, but movies and video games love jump scares with unnecessarily grating noises. This is why I can’t do haunted houses despite loving the aesthetic and decorations - they’re too loud. Jump scares also don’t leave room for thinking. It’s an almost complete release of tension when they happen. Yes, “Oculus” has a few jump scares, but those weren’t the scenes that got under my skin. (No, that honor goes to the apple/lightbulb scene).

I’ve long since grown out of a need to line by bed with an army of stuffed animals to defend me against vampires and other nighttime terrors. My preferred horror stories have me buying into their internal logic and leave me with questions to mull long after I’ve finished the narrative. I prefer creepy quiet scenes mixed in with my horrific images. I want to escape into a story rather than be forced to live my reality.

Also the less jump scares, the better.

I gave “A History of Fear” 2.5 stars (rounded up to 3) on GoodReads. For all its flaws, I can see fans of true crime enjoying this book. As for me, if the paranormal is promised in my story, I want some really good, actually in the narrative’s world, paranormal stuff to go down.

What are some of your favorite horror media? I’ve listed a few of mine here, but this list is nowhere near complete. For one thing, “Dracula” is still one of my all time favorite horror novels (even if only the first part is truly horrifying) and the first time I mention it is this sentence.

Pleasant nightmares.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y’all like hearing from me.

Until next week.

Welcome to the Haunting Horror

Happy belated Halloween! Did you guys have a spooky time? I was suffering from some extreme jet lag as I had spent the past week exploring the Pacific Northwestern region of the United States. Then I decided to take the red-eye home. The only thing scary about my day was the lack of sleep.

When was the last time you felt scared?

The feeling doesn't have to be because of something major. I feel scared for many reasons, some of them even silly. Fear, horror, and terror are all associated with feeling scared. I tend to find myself terrified of some social situations (none I will specify here) or when one of my cousins decides to take a mountain pass road on the side of a cliff...in the rain (“it’s only 8 miles” my foot).

Fear is subjective.

As a child I was always fearful of mysterious monsters in my closet or under my bed. I would build a wall of stuffed animals to keep vampires and ghosts away. Don’t even get me started on zombies. I can’t stand zombies even to today (if only they weren’t a real probability of occurring right?).

Did someone say monsters?

It took a long time for me to be able to watch or read horror stories. There are some stories I still won’t watch (mainly of the torture/slasher variety). I don’t like blood and gore at all. Even in college I wouldn’t watch the show Supernatural after a certain time.

Except things started to change.

It was a slow process. I was always aware of stranger danger, but it wasn’t as big of a reality until I moved away from my friends and family. The idea that I could fail didn’t seem as scary until I was responsible for providing for myself. The future always seemed bright and shiny until I realized there was very little I could do to control it.

My fears went from imaginary monsters to intangible realities. I can’t punch a fear that doesn’t have a physical form.

I also started embracing more of the horror genre as a way to deal with my own nightmares. Slowly at first with kids shows and cheesy movies from the 30s, 40s, and 50s. I became drawn to the beautiful side of horror. Gothic sets with ominous lighting and music scores that could draw out every emotion the characters felt. I really liked horror video games with their intricate stories and emerging the player as both the protagonist and omnipresent observer. Fatal Frame and The Haunting Grounds are two great titles that pull this off.

Now, it’s become a lot harder to horrify me with movies, books, and even video games. It’s not that I’ve seen it all or that I know the genre too well. It’s more that a lot of horror mediums these days rely on cheap scares to jolt their audience into an adrenaline rush.

The type of horror I’m drawn to is subtle. It isn’t a sudden jump scare or loud “boo” to the face. It’s seductive, able to draw their victim in to a beautiful trap that leaves them shaking for days after wondering when the next bout of terror will come. It’s a horror that stalks its prey long after the prey has escaped.

A great example of this horror done well is the new Netflix original The Haunting of Hill House. I was surprised by how off putting and truly terrifying the mini series was. The very few jump scares were on point and not cheap thrills.

The new Suspiria movie that just came out is an equally terrifying experience (though I wasn't so keen on the Epilogue portion of the movie). Much like 2018's The Haunting of Hill House, this remake of the 1977 classic takes things in a completely new direction while keeping the bar bones of the original. It's a slow burn horror movie that draws the viewer in and isn't shy about being upfront with the supernatural aspects of the movie.

However, these examples might not be seen as scary or engaging enough for everyone.

The thing about horror is that its incredibly subjective. A movie like the 2017 It doesn't scare me for a couple of reasons: 1) I'm not scared of clowns, 2) I know that there's a whole other part because I watched the original 1990s miniseries, and 3) the imagery that's supposed to shock me - doesn't. That doesn't mean there weren't a few good scares in the movie. I definitely jumped when I first saw the headless boy following Ben and the scene with Pennywise coming out of the projector was creepy as all get out. I still enjoyed the movie, I just wasn't scared by it.

I may find it creepy, but it's not scary.

As my taste in horror media changed, so too did the things that scared me. I'm no longer scared of ghosts or witches or vampires. Now I'm scared of things that are a lot more abstract and less straight forward to fight back against. I'm scared of the a future I can't predict. I'm scared of hypothetical situations that I can neither control nor account for. I'm afraid of isolation and being forgotten about.

People have different fears, anxieties, and feelings. What one person finds scary another finds invigorating. Some people like being scared, others hate it with every fiber of their body. Fears morph and change as your life does the same.

Just remember one thing: whatever your scared of, no matter how mundane - it's okay to feel that fear.

Just try not to let those fears take over your life.

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Welcome to the Darker Side of Things

Halloween is fast approaching! Have you guys picked out a costume yet?

Halloween has always held a special place in my heart. The decorations, the costumes, and the TV specials were always fun this time of year. I loved dressing up for Halloween (still do when I can). I always had to be either something dead or scary. One year, when I was dressed as a vampire, I scared my next door neighbor so bad that he refused to go trick or treating. I think he was barely one or two years old at the time.

Though I love most things about the season, I’m not a huge fan of haunted houses. Don’t get me wrong, the decorations and costumes are fantastic, but I can’t deal with the sensory overload that sometimes happens to me with the flashing lights and loud noises. Plus I really hate jump scares - they’re not actually scary, just startling.

It’s the Halloween aesthetic that I truest find beautiful. The leaves are changing colors, then falling to the ground. The air smells crisp and a little smoky at times. There’s an ever lingering reminder that with life eventually comes death.

I love it.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while now, you’d have notice that I really like witches and the Gothic aesthetic. I’m a big sucker for movies like Sleepy Hallow and Bram Stoker’s Dracula (even with the silly accents and over sexual tones). I read the short stories of Edgar Allen Poe and H. P. Lovecraft over and over again.

Death is the overarching theme of the season with some villainy and chaos on the side. I think there’s a reason the Sanderson sisters are so fondly remembered even though they are planning on murdering children in the movie Hocus Pocus. They’re everything fun and evil about the season. They’re threatening, but not too threatening.

For a while now, I’ve been working on creating a collection of poems that I feel fit into the Gothic style. I’ve written about 30 poems so far and, though I’m n where near close yet, I would like to try to get them published next year. I might even include some ink drawings.

A lot of these poems focus on death and what comes after. I take great joy in playing with expectations such as using limericks, tropically a playful or funny poem style, and use that format as though it were on a gravestone.

I’ve been told by a few people that my work can be delightfully demented.

Or maybe I was using that term to describe my sense of writing style. I don’t always like it when something is scary to be scary or depressing to be depressing. That isn’t how I am always able to work through my emotions. I often twist and bend these expressions to where it might take a bit to realize exactly what I’m writing about.

Death can be absurdly funny, like in the movies Scream, Scary Movie, and Final Destination. There’s a part of me that’s satisfied when the villain is killed off for good to triumph, like in Hocus Pocus or pretty much every Disney Villain ever.

There’s nothing wrong with being fascinated with the darker side of things. True crime stories and ghost hunting shows are still popular. There’s a mortician who hosts a YouTube channel and explains different things about her job (it’s called “Ask a Mortician”. People still visit sites of mass destruction, murder, and battlefields whether as reminders of the past or to satisfy a morbid need.

I’m not sure where my fascination with the darkness in life comes from. It could be that I need to have some kind of exposure to the worst side of nature so that I can appreciate the best.

It’s hard to know what to do with extreme negativity when you’re not regularly exposed to it. How do you empathize with an experience you’ve never lived through, but know that other people have? How is it possible to understand another person’s pain when you can’t comprehend where that pain came from?

Seeking out darkness isn’t bad. I find that it’s just another way for me to make peace with the experiences I’ve witness and lived through.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Until next week.

Welcome to Monsters Part 1: Evil Predators Under the Bed

So I wanted to get a few things out of the way before really diving into this week's post. First, everything that I am writing is my opinion which is based on my own experiences and (occasional) research. How I interpret something could be entirely different from how someone else does. Second, I am aware that there are people out there who have done a much better analysis than I am about to do on this topic. That's not going to stop me. Third, I enjoy writing and (to a lesser extent) reading horror. This series has been buzzing in my brain for a while and I'm not entirely sure how long it will go for. You've been warned.

An image from my sketch book... 

The monsters of my childhood were simple. They hid in the darkest shadows of my bedroom, waiting for me to peak out from under the safety of my covers and spirit me away. Only my army of stuffed animals kept the evil creatures at bay.

Or at least that was what my childish logic told me.

They are the predators and we are the prey.

Humans have it pretty good right now from an evolutionary stand point. We've somehow managed to populate every continent on Earth and it's only a matter of time before we start looking at colonizing the moon or building underwater dwellings deep on the ocean floor. There isn't anything on our planet that uses us as a primary food source (bacteria don't count). We are the dominate species.

But we weren't always the top dog and I think a part of our instinct subconscious remembers that.

Many of the scariest and most evil of monsters in our classic and popular culture (at least the western  culture which I am most familiar with) are terrifying because they prey on humans or want to cause serious harm. Manticores are known for consuming their victims whole, leaving no shred of evidence behind. Vampires want to suck the life right out of you. Zombies will tear out your throat and start eating you, while you're still alive. 

All pleasant images right?

Here there be monsters!

Explorers used to write on maps "here there be monsters" to indicate unexplored or extremely dangerous areas. It would be far from civilization where a lot of things that were unknown about these places. Those who went there, sometimes didn't come back. 

Creatures such as the kraken, manticore, siren, and harpy supposedly inhabited these area. They were blamed for shipwrecks, strange disappearances, and unexplained deaths. They preyed on humans in the same way that humans preyed on other animals.

Off the edge of the map, we weren't special anymore. 

I think the ones that can talk and easily mimic human speech are the scariest. They trick their victims into thinking they're in distress, but when the hopeless sap gets too close, it's too late. Human is eaten. The creepiest example that I have come across while doing research is from the Philippines's mythology. The tiyanak is sometimes depicted as a vampire like creature that makes the same sounds as a baby in distress to lure its victims to their deaths. 

I feel that is one monster I would easily tricked by.

The Odyssey had a lot of anthropomorphize creatures that tried to lead our heroes astray. The sirens in particular stand out. Their beautiful voices enchanting anyone who gets too close to their island, leading them to a horrible shipwreck. I was never certain if they did this to amuse themselves or if they ate their drowned victims too. Either way, they are hunting humans with hypnotic singing.

They were human once...

I've always thought that the most tragic monsters are the ones who started out as human. They are twisted into the evil creatures that haunt our nightmares instead of just being born to cause us harm. Vampires, werewolves, wendigos, and zombies are all creatures that (depending on source material) started out as perfectly ordinary people. 

And they need to eat us to survive.

There are different degrees to these types of stories. There's sometimes a shred of humanity still in them. But the need to survive nearly always wins. Dracula might have at one point been a human, but by the time he makes his way to London, he is perfectly fine eating an entire ship's crew. 

Zombies probably scare me the most in this category. Zombies were really popular when I was in middle school and I read a couple books and saw a few movies starring them. The heroes in these films were always under threat of being eaten or turned. Inevitably, one of the members of their party would get bitten and a morality crisis ensued. Did the group kill the infected individual before they could become the zombie or did they wait and hope the person didn't actually turn? Could they look into the face of their family/friend and kill them while they were still human? Could they do it after their family/friend became a zombie?

I don't know which is a worse feeling, the idea that I'm about to be eaten by a monster or that I might become the evil monster. Knowing that you're about to die is one thing. Knowing that you might be the cause of your friends and family's death is another. Would you rather die or become the monster?

Of heroes and monsters.

Monsters are typically vanquished by a hero. 

In the western classics, we are taught about how Hercules slayed the hydra (as part of his penitence for murdering his family) and how St. George saved a princess from being eaten by a vengeful dragon (and perpetuating a horrible cliche). The hero is either tasked to kill the evil monster to prove his worth or redeem himself from some horrible sin. It's not a matter of who will win the fight, but how the hero will succeed.

It is the classic good versus evil narrative. 

These types of stories continue exist in our modern culture. Tolkien told us about how a hobbit along with thirteen dwarves traveled to The Lonely Mountain to reclaim a treasure from a dragon (Hobbit). Buffy and her friends (Buffy The Vampire Slayer) protected us from the vampire apocalypse. The Winchester brothers (Supernatural) are still "saving people, hunting things" (you all knew I was going to work this in eventually).

The monsters are the evil that need to be destroyed and the hero is the good we root for. Good always wins the day.

We humans might be food monsters prey upon, but we are also the hope that keeps their evil at bay.

Alright that last line is a little sappy, even for me. 

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Let's see what kinds of monsters we'll meet next week.

Welcome to a Writer's Fear

I would love to one day see myself on a best selling author's list. Or even have a novel or short story I've written turned into a popular movie series. I hope to one day have people look back fondly on my work like I do with stories written by J.K. Rowling and Terry Pratchett.

I know I'm not the only person who has these types of dreams. It doesn't matter if they are about being a writer, a movie maker, a musician, or any other type of creation.

I've been told that I can write well. I've been told I have a wild imagination. I've been told that I am a good story teller. I've been told a lot of things about my writing, nearly all of them good.

Yet there's always this nagging voice in the back of my mind that causes me to doubt myself. Between writer's block and fear that my stories are no where near good enough for strangers to read, I struggle to finish short stories and novels (or if I do finish them, then finishing the rewriting and editing).

I don't make it a secret that I write fan fiction (no not the 50 Shades of Grey kind). It's where I've been experimenting with my style and different genres. I've gotten some great feedback on most of my stories. However, I've stopped rereading them.

Why?

Because when I go back and read those stories, all I see is where I could have improved them. I notice all the small changes that I could have made that would have made my work better. I also start to sometimes think that what I've written is silly and that maybe I shouldn't have posted them at all.

Doubt is my worst enemy.

Even this blog can be a struggle sometimes. I have posted once a week consistently (with one or two skips) since 2013. I've had many posts that I've started and then promptly deleted. There have been many weeks where I've wondered if I should click that "publish" button because once I do, anyone can see it.

 Will people laugh at what I have to say? Am I writing anything worth reading? Is this even good?

Don't get me wrong. I know negative feedback is going to happen. I can't grow as a writer without negative feedback. I just find that there's a difference between being told that a few things in my writing don't work versus being told that what I've written is complete garbage. It's that fear of being complete garbage that always makes me pause (and occasionally ask someone for a second opinion) before hitting that "publish" button.

I've recently joined two writers groups. I've submitted a few samples of my writing and I've gotten the constructive feedback that I need (what does and doesn't work). Each time that it was my turn to submit, I almost said "never mind, I actually don't have anything to share."

Thankfully I didn't back out. I got the feedback that I needed to make improvements to future drafts and I'm looking to publish a short story (more developments to come). It helps my confidence to know that people like some of the things I write.

It might be totally irrational, but one of my biggest fears is that I'm not writing anything worth reading.

Finding that confidence might be the toughest challenge that I face, that or editing. I have very little patience for editing.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off), please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me. Until next week.

Welcome To The Game Plan

Ha ha what game plan?

I have come to the realization that I have absolutely know idea what my long term goals are. This is a first for me. I have always had a plan and if the first plan didn't work out, I had a backup plan. Though I still make plans, they are mostly short term. This is a first.

I knew which college I wanted to attend at 9 years old. Yep 9. I think my parent's theory was to get me interested early so I had something to work towards. I then spend the next 9 years working my tail off getting in to said college. I was strategic. I did my research. I knew which programs in middle and high school to attend, the classes I needed to take and the grades I needed every step of the way.

I ended up burnt out by my sophomore year of college (I really don't recommend taking three math based classes and a language in one semester), but I did it. I acheived my goal.

My next step was to graduate college, find a job and move out. I am still occasionally amazed that I pulled all there of those goals off.

Honestly, I think the only reason I met those goals is because I wanted them badly. So badly I planned my very existence around it. There weren't any built in short cuts, no room to deviate from the paths I wanted to trek. I wanted it and I was going to work as hard as I could to earn it.

Now I don't know what I want.

Well, that's only partially true. I have a list of things that would be nice to have and would like to do. I am writing a novel and planning out several others (nearly at 50,000 words for the first one). I have yearly goals with my job and I am hopefully advancing in my career.

I just don't know what my next step in my life is. Do I want to get my Masters? If I do, then in what subject? Do I want to get married and have a family? Do I want to become a hobo and travel the world?

I don't know.

I know I like my place. I like my friends. I like my job. I guess that's what it means to be an adult: being confident to make decisions without having any idea where it might lead you. Not knowing what to do it normal and allows for some interesting things to happen. I'm just not sure where to go next because if I've learned anything, it's that nothing is permanent.

If you enjoyed this post, or it really pissed you off, please like, share of comment. I love hearing from my readers and hope you guys are getting something out of these posts. Until next week.