Author’s thoughts

End of introspective

Please ignore this. I get a little self-involved and narcissistic .

To whomever it is entertaining, I just want to say I discovered something I didn't know about myself. I freakin have ADHD, how ridiculous is that. Now coupled with low self esteem and some freakishly disturbing childhood that I had blocked out. I finally understand something about myself. Will I ever tell anyone I have it? No. That's the thing about low self esteem, I can't take anymore criticism, or the thought of it. I'm not saying my poor content is caused by adhd or social anxiety that held me back from learning about life, it's the fact that I made bad decisions even when I had the chance to improve myself. Even at that time, ADHD wasn't even a big deal to me and I could almost be the best person I can. Know what else happened? I got proud.

All that changed when I moved to a bigger place and culture shock hit me like a punch to gut and I relapsed into a negative loop of thinking I wasn't enough yet I had the freakin tool to be better. If you want to know the specific details, I don't think I'm actually capable of that( with the whole adhd and that). I have been stuck in a community college for 5 freakin years all because I have so many grand ideas of what I want to become in the future and how it is so easy to do so, and therefore I am stuck between choices. Let me be a little clearer on that(now I'm breaking my own rules. Who cares anyway). I have always been a perfectionist, even though my life is literally falling apart. That's actually a lie, I only tried to be one even though I ended up failing. And having perfectionism and reading web novels where the main character's end goal is to be the most perfect immortal is a bad combo. I can honestly say that I enjoy wuxia, xianxia and xuahuan not because of the adventures only but mainly the idea that you will eventually become the dominator of a plane and be worshipped by the endless multitude.

Note: I forgot something I wanted to write about that was phenomenal, damn my brain.

That idea and the embarrassment I felt reading these novels( that I secretly looked down as disappointment to literature and writing itself) also fed into my low self esteem, not being honest with myself. In reality, I can't truly handle those best seller and literary jargon that overemphasizes in detail and that was never for me. If you read Mody Dick or Ulysses for even a day, you can understand how I felt( maybe you don't and im just dumb). Those where the western novels, and even when I tried to read great eastern fiction like three body problem, deer and the cauldron, Tao te Ching, I failed miserably. It got boring so fast for my adhd brain.

That's when I looked into easier to understand fiction, you know how the spiral goes. First anime, then manga, then light novels until you see somehow on novel updates like those weird esoteric descriptions about destroying the heavens and earth while becoming an imperial Wargod soaring the nine heavens on a hundred lotuses. That got me interested and I eventually fell in love with those so called trash web serials that I even wanted to write some myself. If you have seen my incomplete novels, those are all the got tier ideas I wanted to write into fiction and maybe become the next Er gen or I Eat Tomatoes. I really like these web serials to the point of developing a crippling addiction. All while this was happening, I skipped classes to read them(because the teacher said we don't have to attend all the classes). I started with the good novels with all the drama and ups and downs that the main character went through. When he finally defeated thug number 22 and the audience went speechless, I would try to say to myself that this is too generic and I should read real web novels like lord of mysteries or path toward heaven( this is subjective, you don't have to agree with my tastes) yet I would almost jump up and scream happily in my heart that finally the stupid young master or elder was defeated. After I missed my entire semester and forgetting to cancel my classes, because my adhd and lack of social contact made me not realize that my GP would be zero if I don't attend. When I messed up, my scholarship went into warning and I kept hiding it from my parent and even faking notes and transcripts.

I realized then that it would be impossible to make up for the terrible GPA and even if I had the best grades next semester, I wouldn't retain my GPA. Therefore I decided to get a job that will help me pay for my classes. And of course, I messed it up because it was my first job and I got complacent and became lazy.

Of course, that didn't bother me and I chose to concentrate on my studies, while still falling into the web serials loop on the side. That only served to make everything studied even harder because all I was thinking about was the cliffhanger about the nth harem girlfriend of the MC was about to get raped or something. I failed a few courses and had to retake them while I barely passed others. When the following semesters came, my financial aid was taken away and I was forced to get a job. I hadn't given up on myself because why? I was resilient as fak(sorry, I try not to curse, I wasn't raised that way). That limited the amount of classes I could take and be able to pay for.

You would think that I disappointed my hardworking mother or big sister, but she also got problems that didn't let her be involved with my stuff as much as she should. So by now I was trapped in a small loop of getting depressed(not the medical kind )by where I am and not changing my life, thinking of starting afresh away from my clingy and overprotective single parent and loser- like older sibling because they weren't helping myself. I had a plan and everything about how I was finally going to confront her and let her know that just because I can't properly take care of my life doesn't mean you have to smother me to death and control every aspect of my life. Sometimes I resented her for criticizing every little thing I do or forget to do, thinking I'm an adult and she shouldn't disrespect me that much. Of course these feelings were in short busts and I would eventually remember that what she says is true and I have no comeback. All I was left with is the intense desire to leave home and go to fend off for myself, even if I turn into human scum or useless as long as I had a little control over my life. During that time I had changed multiple jobs, there was even an amazing job I had at the freakin airport. It was the best thing to ever happen to me in the universe and I could chill inside a plane when I'm tired of work. Of course, I had just had one of those fights my parent running in my mind when I crashed the tug that loads cargo onto the plane and created a huge dent. With my freakin ADHD brain, I went blank and decided to keep quiet and park it, thinking no one would notice and even if they did, the other employees simply wouldn't use that tug. Oh how naive I was. I didn't even take 3 hours and it was the union that kept me from being permanently fired by instead making me resign( at least that's how it went on paper, even I was fuzzy on the details. All I remember was having to make discussion for appeal, and there's no way a socially awkward person like me couldn't even chat normally would do such a professional thing.)

Since it was a minimum wage job, I was able to easily get a new one but I was still firm in my plans to move out of my home and start a new loner life. And guess what happened next. My single mother who was slightly introverted and didn't go out suddenly went to another country, got married and came back pregnant with twins. How in the world was I supposed to leave her alone to her devices when she brought this new burden in my life. At this point in my life, I no longer had any emotions(technically I couldn't empthasize with anything. ). Due to the low self esteem that I never knew I had and adhd, I even felt scared that I might one day make a mistake and kill the baby all because I forgot to lock the door the baby got kidnapped or had an accident. That made me even want to get more away from reality and focus my job to avoid the hellish uncertainty of life.

I got a new job where I could use my phone freely and even got an app that lets me read the novels instead of being on my phone, meaning I could focus all my attention on the enjoyable web novels and still do my job perfectly. I started to like my job better than when I was at home because I had to do homework when I got home and reading web serials just wasn't doing it for me anymore. I was in a stable state, no one disturbed me and no fear. My mother even miscarriaged one twin and the other barely survived, forcing her to get a c-section and a premature kid yet I couldn't even be bothered to see her at the hospital. Of course, I went there once because it felt somehow abnormal to not even visit her. So I insisted and did so. She was never a sad person and I figured that the talks to her distant husband and won't feel bothered to smother me or rule my life. I was socially awkward and had no empathy towards the outside, maybe that was exacerbated by my change in web serials from good lawful MCS to neutral and lawful evil MC who don't have to care about the one dimensional girlfriends or sects and be free loners. Have I mentioned that I tend to be overly sensitive and hyper focused (you know, the adhd) and get too personal with my fiction. Therefore how could I get super emotionally involved with the MC who gets beat down over and over again by life. So I chose my tags following those that wouldn't suffer, the strong from the start, the overpowered and all that. For any web serial lovers, please don't get angry because how I'm seen to be shitting(happened again) on web serials like they are the cause of my habits. It's my life choices and terrible decisions that led me to my unhealthy addiction. In this time period, I was going further the Webnovel iceberg( if you don't what that is, check it out. It's actually cool). Of course, there's no way I could persist this kind of life without giving up or introspecting. The reason I kept this life was because of the little pride I gained when I tried to write this novel "mind cultivator" and it appeared in potential starlet. Gaining over 50k views, and I felt more proud than those who had less views and even though my great linguistic and literal techniques were enough for me to be the next Er Gen. Of course at this time I still didn't realize that authors who write these novels take hours each day to write thousands of words each day. I didn't write this novel to make money or fame but rather to get comments and see how I can improve my writing skills before I can move on to another project when I'm confident enough(guess how that turned out). That's why I rejected every email or money offer , whether scam or not, to make my novel premium. How ironic! I got complacent and wrote once every week. Even then I always made up stupid excuses, thinking no one really reads this novel and they won't care. My life was on autopilot mode and I was fine with it. I could live the rest of my life like this and I would never be sad or face the uncertain world. Even the times I almost got into accidents and almost died, I had no care at all, maybe a little fear that would last a few minutes then go back to normal. I thought I was depressed but I didn't feel really like I had no emotions. I didn't however, feel too particular about my lifestyle or future harm. I never got truly sick because….Who knows. I even tried to force myself to feel anxious or sad whenever something terrible happened or I made a mistake. Yet all those emotions were forgotten in less than an hour or a good night sleep. I was content with my life. My trait of resiliency had secretly worked against me.

Everything changed when the fire nation attacked. Something happened, a son of my mother's friend came to our country to leave with us. I got extremely nervous of such a stranger living with us. Of course my socially awkward self couldn't even oppose what my parent wanted. I wasn't scared of him but rather that I had to introduce him to our country that I didn't even know myself that much and I would truly disappoint this nice person. He was honestly the most interesting person I have known. He has a girlfriend and a clingy hot ex. His father has a literal harem. His mother and step mothers leave in different homes from each other with his dad weakly cycling between those three wives. And you know his rank in his job. He's a police commissioner. How more urban life can you get! I could write a novel about him snd and maybe get rich. So this guy was super humble, being a guest and all, yet he made friends and a social network in less than a few weeks after visiting the country. Even almost joined the military, this guy was literally a protagonist if I have ever seen one yet he seems boring on normal day. I tried to show him the reins on how to get by so that by the time he's comfortable he can move out and make a life for himself. He started to play with the little brother that no one seemed to care about at home and I even bonded with my little brother finally.

I got off topic, damn stupid brain, I wanted mention that, um, I forgot.

Wait, wait,wait. I wanted to discuss about my web serial loop. Let me continue where I left off. After I got addicted to evil and chaotic neutral MCS that never got emotionally hurt and subconsciously applied it to my life. Even further down the iceberg, I went into mtl. Even further, I somehow learned to differentiate those hard to understand Chinese characters and could categorize my files in Chinese since no one could read and understand. I was able to create a mtl novel in less than two minutes by a series of hacking and experience. I won't tell you how, y'all should pay with coins like you're supposed to.

What also changed is that I started to feel guilty, like for the first time about ruining someone's future. It has always been about me and my social anxiety issues and how I am secretly a failure at life but my little brother who lost his twin at birth hasn't started to talk at 3 years old. And that's my fault because I'm not willing to take him outside to play and experience life just because no one else at home is willing to. I knew it was wrong yet everyone was caught up in their business, however like the loser that I am, I could even take that step and do anything about it. Only bring it up in occasional conversation. Even the interesting guy who was humble also subconsciously copied our lifestyle and became either too tired or too busy to go out with his squad. I finally felt like a true loser.

Everything was still going fine and dandy until I realized it was my 23rd birthday in a few days. I didn't think much about it until I woke up that day. It was this month incase you needed to know.

PS: now I'm bored with writing. And if I exit to rest. I will forget my next thoughts, oh well. Sheet happens. Then again, I never edit my novels or read it once it wrote it. So no biggie.

Note: I forgot where I was. I should really get a journal and note down stuff.

I started community college when I turned 18, and now I'm 23 and still in the same college without knowing if I will ever even get an associate degree or transfer like I had initially imagined. On my birthday, I woke up with a small panic attack. Well it was more likely mild distress but I realized how I just wasted all my entire life. Deep diving into novels was probably the worst thing I have ever done. I realized something important from my static life. Change is necessary and denying it is falling into an endless abyss of despair and pain. Because I had made my life static, all my ideas and self concept wasn't allowed to grow. Meaning whether it's how I interact, my ambitions, the people I find attractive or interesting now all looked older than I remember and not in my league. Imagine realizing that the girls you find hot are freakin 18 to 19 year olds. That's messed up. I'm 23 for freak's sake. Of course at this time I had another addiction that I'm unwilling to say here since I won't have any reputation left. But I dealt with it very easily so I don't care about it.

Anyway, I looked into getting therapy( even though I always thought it was cringe and only crazies and addicts who can't control themselves did it). When I looked into other solutions all I got was got out and meet people, even make friends. It sounded too ridiculous. Even when I looked into therapy after a long hesitation, I found out I can't afford it. So what i did was essentially bibliotherapy and realized I could never know how to think properly with my adhd and since my life was essentially over life my older sibling's(my older sister is almost like a loser and no longer cares about anything. Essentially like a virgin living in her mom's basement but female. I came to realize that I am the only one who has to motivate them, even take care of my little brother's proper growth so he doesn't turn out like me.

I tried to suppress my usual chaotic thoughts but failed, I even looked up how to think. What I got in return was a philosophical book by Daniel Dennett about such jargon about tools for thinking. I tried more and more books but all they told me was go out mistakes and learn from them in the most I tried to first cut off my phone usage at work . And not think while working, thinking that I might get bored but I found out my brain couldn't stop thinking. Even if I went to a quiet area and tried to finish my thoughts and finally feel bored, I realized I couldn't even if I tried as hard as I could. And all my thoughts were pretty much negative as expected. The next day instead played music on a loop until I settled on once song I got addicted to recently and wouldn't think but try to dance. Yes, it was dubstep. Juelz-inferno in case you want to find out.

That's when my first introspective happened and I finally arrived at a conclusion to what was happening to me. How was I able to forget my social skills? That's freakin impossible because I know I had friends and made friends before, even a crush or two and ambiguous relationships with a girl. So why can't I remember any of that?

That's when it clicked. I'm in a mental time loop. My thoughts keep getting distressed and whenever I reach my breaking point, I forget completely. To explain this clearer, I have to mention that I moved to a bigger place when I was still trying to fit in in my country and didn't know anything there. I was socially awkward but it was the simply the effect of a little messed up childhood and didn't affect me much. I moved to the so called bigger place(I don't know why I don't want to say it, like I will be hunted down or anything. It was USA. There you go. Are you happy now),but I suffered a culture shock and not knowing where I belonged until now, maybe I will never know. So how could I take care of myself and family if I didn't know any better or feel the need to know!

Of course the best thing to happen to me in my life was reaching that epiphany. I even realized why my mother loves to yell and criticize every little thing I do, it wasn't that she was naggy and bored with her life, it was rather a habit she built up from constantly being frustrated by unteachable me and also my introverted older sibling and that's the only way she knows of installing proper behavior in us. When I looked further into why I had such little self esteem, I finally understood why. What caused every single problem in my life and would continue to do so for the rest of my life.

I lacked humility.

I was never humble and I was unwilling to learn and change because being humble was never a part of my thoughts all those times I was beaten down by life. All my goals were based on fame and fortune but I never learned how to be humble with my life. I don't whether I will achieve the Dao with this epiphany but I hope to relish in it more. I realized being humble led to me not truly respecting other people and instead treated them as incomprehensible aliens instead of great people I want to get to know about and have lived normal lives while doing what they honestly can. I finally realized I can make mistakes and be ok not because it is cringe and I will feel greatly ashamed but rather every single thing is a teacher.

I always wrote these chapters with the sole purpose of seeing my view count increase, rather than my original goal of becoming a good author. Maybe that's why poor content became trashy and I wrote just to fill the weekly quota and see that viewership count. From now I will stop doing that.

Also this was never for anyone but me, but if you happened to get interested and read up to here. I really hope you gained a little something for yourself since I wrote this free of judgement and wouldn't care if Qidian took away this post or the novel altogether.

I only posted this here instead of my private notes or whatever because I can't I like the background of Webnovel when writing and also I posted this here because there's a chance I might relapse and go back to being a freakin loser. And if I do and decide to come here to check on the views for my vanity. I will remember what's wrote here and maybe save myself from another loop that would truly end my life. This is probably the only time I will be vulnerable ever again.