#homeostasister’s journey of self discovery

[homeostasister]

Man, I feel like if I take my own wellbeing seriously—if I rest when I’m tired, and eat when I’m hungry, and do things that stop me from being sad or worried when I don’t need to be—then I’m never gonna succeed in school. And for a while I was okay with that, because I figured I needed to be hardworking and disciplined if I wanted to be a scientist, and I figured that the work I was doing would make it worth it. But I don’t really believe that anything is worth it anymore. I got a customer service job over the summer. I only got through it by telling myself I was just a silly little guy and nothing I did really mattered. But at least once I got home, I could be honest with myself—that if nothing I did mattered, then all I really wanted was to rest and have fun. And I don’t think I ever really got myself out of that mindset. I don’t think there’s anything worth sacrificing my own wellbeing for, not anymore. If I do genuinely love something, I shouldn’t let it destroy me—and if I don’t, then I should be honest with myself about why I have to do it. Life has always needed to work hard to survive, but I don’t think I’m the type of person to make hard work my life purpose. If I were to keep studying biology, and maybe even get a job in research at some point—research I genuinely care about—I would need to be able to take care of myself. And I don’t know exactly what that looks like, but I think I had better figure it out while I still have the opportunity. And if my grades suck this quarter, and I have to retake some classes, then so be it.

[homeostasister]

I’ve been losing motivation in school lately and thinking a lot about why I want to go into biology research anyway. I’ve come to this conclusion before and I’m sure I’ll have to come to it again, but for me it’s ultimately a matter of being able to appreciate living things. I may gain and lose interest in specific subjects, but life will always matter to me. I could say it’s because we’re all alive together in this confusing, dangerous world, and for all we hurt and exploit each other, we all share a common history and a common goal, and all life deserves respect and appreciation, and that would be a nice sentiment, but it’s not the reason I like life. If it were, then it would be dependent on a single perspective, a single model of the world. But the models are what we build to explain and communicate our experiences. They do crosstalk with and influence our perceptions of those experiences, and they are instrumental in our ability to do anything productive with them, but they can only justify action in and of themselves so long as they are believed unquestioningly—and I think no belief should be beyond questioning. The reason I get invested in learning about life is the same reason I get invested in anyone or anything—because, in one way or another, I can relate to it. I can share the calm contentedness of a purring cat. I can wonder at what it would be like to be a bee, or an ant, or a wasp. I can take comfort in the steady, patient presence of a tree. I can be inspired by my own immune system’s ability to adapt and remember, and to strike a dynamic balance between self-defense and tolerance, while warily admiring the strategies which pathogens have developed to subvert it. And I can look at any living organism and know that, for all our differences, we share the same fundamental building blocks; we share a common ancestor and were shaped by common patterns and processes. And this is why I want to study biology—because primarily, I love life. And I don’t have to go into research, even if it is what I’ve decided to pursue and what I’ve been working towards since high school. Because life is always there, and I have always found ways to appreciate it. And I have set myself on this path, and given myself the chance to pursue a career in microbiology research, and I only got this far because, for better or worse, I did build myself a scaffold of unwavering belief—but I could not have maintained it if it did not rest on a foundation of fundamental identification with and appreciation for life. I don’t really know whether research is the best path for me anymore. I have a lot of respect for science as a tool for understanding the world, and I’d like to believe I could contribute to that work. I know it won’t be easy. I hope it could be worth it, and for now, I’ll do what I can to maintain that hope and work towards realizing it. But no matter what I decide to do, I want to be able to keep learning about and appreciating life, in whatever form that may end up taking.

[homeostasister]

I don’t know what I wanna do with my education anymore honestly. Microbiology and laboratory research doesn’t seem like enough, and I don’t want to hold myself to this path if I can no longer justify it in the face of all that I believe and appreciate. Probably too late to change my major to environmental science—I don’t even really know whether I would want to. At this point I’ll probably see if I can major in philosophy and just take as many non-major bio classes as I like and try to get involved in environmental volunteer work. I think maybe I’m becoming an existentialist hippie or something, I don’t know. I’ve never really had a chance to figure out what I wanna do independent of other people’s expectations and the ideas that I felt like I had to hold onto to meet or resist them. I’m not an ambitious person. When all the artifice is stripped away, and I’m just a creature in a beautiful and confusing world, I have nothing worth being ambitious about. I’m not that naive; I know I’ll have to do draining work to get by no matter what. I know that education is the way people develop the skills they need to live better lives. I wish I could start over and look at my college education from a purely utilitarian standpoint, more of a “Cs get degrees get jobs” perspective, but that would require having had principles to stand by that were not simply the ways I justified working hard towards limited and uncertain ends. I don’t think I was really ready to go to college, but now that I’m here, I want to make the best of the opportunities available to me, and right now I think that means leaving behind overarching goals and focusing on what I can do in the moment to have fun, engage with the world, and figure out what matters to me, independent of unfounded ideals.

[homeostasister]

Sartre: Existence precedes essence. Humans are fundamentally free to do what they choose and forge their own path in life, with all the anguish and responsibility that comes with that.

Me: So what you’re saying is I should put off working on my homework to write crappy fanfic about Truth’s emo son, the god of statistical analysis?

Sartre: …

[homeostasister]

Lowkey feel like the colors of Naya are fighting for control of my mental state these past few days. White and red are arguing about whether I should focus on studying like a responsible student, or give up on school to pursue an easier life. Green is laughing condescendingly at their shortsighted antics and advising me to focus on taking care of myself and appreciating the life around and within me. She’s waving at blue on the sidelines, inviting them to come join us.

[homeostasister]

I love projecting on my OCs and giving them mental breakdowns >:3