I Procrastinate
Sometimes I procrastinate. Or maybe often? I don’t really know how to measure it. Well, the point is I do procrastinate on things. But on what things?
- Learning hard things
- Building something new
- Tackling problem that I don’t know the answer of
- etc.
Most of those I found can be solved by working recursively. But after doing a good amount of procrastinating there are a class of things that made me so uncomfortable to the point that it paralyzed me over and over again.
Showing Up to “People”
Or maybe better known as being in public. And not just about there being in front of many people, but specifically being in front of “people” that I don’t know enough to the point that they are just there as “people” in my mind.
It’s so hard that if you remotely know me, you can clearly see my expression stiffen and my eyes darting around. Searching for a comfortable pocket of known-ness that I could not find.
And it applies not only in real physical world, but also in the virtual world. In twitter if I post something for “people” instead of some specific group of people that I know, in Instagram where I post a story (my wife asked me for it) but I don’t know if I posted it who am I showing this to, or even in Discord when I call out @here or @channel, even in a Whatsapp group when i call “people” with “guys”. Given you can’t see my expression, but you could probably tell the discomfort from my writing if you squint your eyes.
Case of Stage Fright? Or Disappointment for My Favorite Actor
This problem shown up recently when I did a AMA for Data Wizard and I need to answer question by recording my answer and post it as stories. Even before I started the AMA, when I post the intro video I couldn’t stand being watched by “people” that I don’t know who and the intro turned out to be too stiff that my sister call it out as “stiff as dry 1kanebo”.
I often blame my stage fright as a blanket scapegoat for this kind of feeling. But I realized a bit more after my wife asks me to just talk like I’m in front of a specific friend, and somehow it felt a lot better! Well, I shouldn’t be that surprised since it’s an advise that spun out of comes out as “know your audience”. But feeling it myself is another story.
What I want to talk about is not that particular solution, but rather the why. After the event passed and I’ve got time to think about it more, and putting some of the things have been floating around in my mind for quite a while. I came into a hypothesis that what made me particularly anxious when in front of “people” is that I’m afraid that I am not what I perceived myself to be. Not really a stage fright as in being afraid of talking in front of huge audience (as long as I’m talking to one person in particular), but more of a fear of disappointment toward myself. Disappointed that what I show to those people actually are not what they want or needs, disappointed that I came across as too shallow, failed to answer to “people” expectation, and many more cases that just keep being generated in my mind.
What I did and What Will I do?
As mentioned, I found cure to the symptom by just imagine myself talking to a particular person. Immersing myself in imagining there’s a real person that I know and can get along well on the other side of the “stage”. As for the real cure, I don’t know yet for now. I personally don’t want to care too much what “people” think of me. But words come more easily than reality, it’s hard to not care when I actually want to get to know other person and they might just be among the “people” for now.
Well, maybe I’ll find my own answer later. For now it’s nice talking to you 2Brin!