I didn’t feel like writing at all yesterday afternoon, so I played Lost Planet instead. After watching Letters to Juliet and Eclipse last night, both of which are love stories, I feel like writing! I’ll discuss them briefly here, so that they don’t get in the way of the post I’m going to write about being depressed. If you see this before I finish writing it and would like to proof-read/review/discuss/whatever it with me, I have xfire, MSN, and AIM listed at the bottom of my tumblr. If you don’t use any of those, well, tumbl your alternative or e-mail either the hotmail or AOL account.

        So, Letters to Juliet. Startling similarities, such as the main character being a perfectionist about her writing and dealing with a fiancé who eventually chooses his work over her. Notable only for a conversation where the girl admits to being a perfectionist about her writing, and her future-fiancé-replacement accuses her of simply being afraid to be imperfect. It’s not far from the truth, and it’s a noble sentiment (your writing is great, stop worrying about it), but I would instead say that perfectionism comes from insecurity rather than fear. Fear would mean fear of failure, fear of being imperfect or not good enough. You would look at what you’ve accomplished and think “I hope this is good, I hope people like it, I worked so hard on this so it had better do well.”

        Unfortunately, perfectionists don’t really think about that. Rather, they tend to look at what they’ve accomplished and think “this is nothing, this is terrible, I worked so hard on this and it was a complete waste of time.” It’s not so much a fear of anything as it is not believing in yourself. You NEED those perfect marks/job/whatever you happen to be working for, but you don’t think you’re good enough, and ultimately time runs out or you get frustrated and you take something you aren’t personally happy with and hand it in anyway. Maybe it goes well, maybe it doesn’t. Even worse, when it’s something without a deadline, is when it goes unfinished because you simply don’t believe the finished product will be any good. I’ve got so many half-formed ideas for writing floating around, it’s more about deciding which to write about than actually writing. I wouldn’t be writing a number of posts I’m going to make if I wasn’t relaxing and avoiding “real life” at all costs.

        One huge caveat: This is simply the kind of perfectionism I see often in myself and others in my academic classes. The people who take Advanced English and every science course available. I accept the existence of positive perfectionism, in the sense of someone who simply does their best all of the time and makes sure everything is perfect. There’s also neurotic forms of perfectionism, where there’s an obsessive compulsion towards working far too hard and never thinking anything is done. I’m simply writing based on personal experience, and likely for everyone person who feels perfectionism differently there will be several who nod and recognize the feelings I’ve described.

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        Now, Eclispe is a complicated monster simply because it has a complicated place in an already complicated history of my complicated relationship. Essentially, it was chock full of similarities to myself and others, both in terms of character and situations. It’s not as clear cut as I’m x character and they’re y character, though, as there are bits of each of us in all of them. At any rate, these similarities were present situations rather than old-ish history when my girlfriend at the time was reading the books, and this created all sorts of depressing experiences. It was just a bad coincidence that the books came to her attention at the absolute worst time possible. Though I suppose reading them beforehand, or afterwards, would have been just as bad… It was just entirely unfortunate.

        Oh, and as far as the characters in Eclipse go… I feel no empathy towards the horrifically beautiful things presented on that screen. They’ve taken humans and air brushed and sparkled them to nearly disgusting levels. Maybe that’s how some people imagined the characters in the books (I doubt it?) but it certainly doesn’t evoke anything in me.

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        Anyway, I’m going to go work on that post about being depressed. It probably won’t be finished tonight, so you have plenty of time to contact me and offer your editing services or whatever help you feel you can give. Oh, and I suppose I should be clear, it’s based on being depressed in the past. It’s not meant to be my life’s story, either, but instead some exposition on something people either understand too little or understand far too well. For those who do not understand it, I’ll try to explain.

        I can’t help but quote As I Am by Dream Theater here, because it’s basically what I would have said anyway, only I can attribute it to someone else and sound snazzy. Ho ho ho.

To those who understand, I extend my hand