Welcome to Carpe Diem. Carpe Diem is Latin for "seize the day". Life is short, and we must accept this to live it to the fullest.
Carpe Diem is not about existentialism or any sort of statement. It is simply my attempt to help others understand that our time on planet Earth is limited. We must use the time we have to fulfill our dreams.
Not the dreams of those around us, or for someone to carry our work. Please live now, while we have the opportunity. You might be sitting down on the couch or at your desk during a break.
Take a moment to think about your life: as a worker, a family member, as a human being. You are you, and there is nobody who is exactly you, with all your experiences and struggles. You have ambitions, wants, desires, and regrets.
The future is receding as time goes by. Each moment is a glorious one of you still being present on Earth. I beg you to work for your ambitions.
Sometimes we are held back by finance or situation, and that's okay. Work on the smaller things, and turn it to something large. Maybe you could make money from it, or discover something else you wanted to do.
I always loved to draw. I had a whole art kit with pencils and erasers, but also paint, pastels, etc. I wanted to paint, but nothing came to mind.
"Draw something first, then paint it," I told myself. So I pulled out my pencil and paper. I soon found myself arguing about what to draw.
A person? Muscles and faces and figures are too complex for my skill. Maybe the moon? A crescent is too simple, but a moon with craters requires shading; something too hard for my skill. Maybe just scribble, get my hand flowing; but I didn't want to waste a sheet.
"I need more skill," I nagged. By then, I lost hope and motivation. I put my supplies away and just played more video games; but I had done that so many times I grew bored of games.
I'd chat with friends in Discord, but my art set kept screaming at me from the corner of my room. I kept talking, reacting, droning on to keep my mind from it. I was in auto-pilot to keep myself busy.
In high school, I had a computer science class. We learned the basics to coding for robots and games, photoshop, even digital modeling. The site we used to code games was small, and the most complex games had only a couple hundred lines; nothing large enough to support an indie game or something.
I wanted to code more, but it just wasn't strong enough.
"Learn python, or java, and find a system to code there," I'd think. So I'd search and search, but trying to find a half-decent course became boring, and I would lose motivation in coding altogether. One less thing I was willing to do.
"Perhaps I could get a job and start making money," but I was too young. I began journals to hold my thoughts, but they never lasted long because reading through my declining motivation was depressing.
I started copying my friends who seemed so happy, and started binging anime. I'd spend hours locked away in my room watching some anime that I wasn't even paying attention to. It was the activity of doing something that satiated my internal hatred for being idle.
I was practically a zombie; alive but dead. Maybe I could get smart and set myself up for success. Reading books would be a good start.
So I would read whatever I could lay my eyes on: novels, magazines, billboards, labels, papers, media. Not only that but I was hitting puberty, and hard. My schedule went from anime binging to reading and masterbating.
It dawned on me that within a year I changed so many times that I no longer knew who I was trying to be, or what wanted to do. I used different names like Isaac, Roman, Quinn, Mishidozi, PSi; it went from names to gibberish to mere letters.
"I'll be the ideal person," I convinced myself. I will be a doctor, heal people, save lives and be the most giving person possible. But it conflicted with my angry and confused nature. I tried so hard to not use sarcasm or to swear, but every word was more harmful than the last.
One time I considered suicide, because my existence was purely chaos, a nervous wreck that couldn't be helped. I was going to slit my wrists, but the blade was too dull and I couldn't push myself to press harder. A few days later, a glass cup slipped from my hands and shards flew.
A large shard almost sliced my ring finger off, missing bone by centimeters. My family rushed to my aid while I tried to clean myself up and not panic. The looks on their faces scared me.
So much concern for a mere finger. My whole life was on the line days earlier. If I died, they'd be more heartbroken than I could fathom.
It made me think of times when I almost died, mostly by drowning. I never learned to swim, but the ocean hated me. On three separate occasions, in three different countries, I almost drowned in the ocean.
There were so many times I could've died, without achieving a single thing of my own desire.
I've wasted so much time trying to find myself because I never listened to my heart, who already knew. It didn't need to be put into words; it just needed an ear to listen and obey. I've made progress in becoming happier.
I write often, to have ideas for games that could develop in the future once I've learned python and java. I keep journals to document progress and comments about what's going on socially.
I am tired. I will sleep. Maybe this will be but another journal lost to time.