Seems that I am two days late with this thing, but at least it is better than last year’s attempt.
Speaking of last year’s new year's reflections, I had attempted to be more abstract with that one, what a mistake that was! So let's just do some actual reflections with this one.

A lot of good things have happened throughout the old year, particularly during the last half of it: I moved to a new apartment along with my older brother, which has been quite the pleasure so far. And perhaps equally importantly, I got to work as an intern for a gaming company for a whole semester! So I actually got some experience in what it is like to work as a game developer, which has only strengthened my desire to get into the industry.

However, right now I want to focus more on something that I had started doing along with the internship, and the discovery that I made from that simple action.

For in the past (and perhaps still a bit to this day) I had always been drawing only in an attempt to make a name for myself as an artist. Each drawing that I made was entirely intended to be shown off and uploaded here or shared with others.

As a result, it all became a numbers game. Always looking at how many views that my drawings would get, and like any stats like views and popularity, it seems to always start at a snail's pace. So I was only ever disappointed by the reception of my drawings, and with how inexperienced I have been, I couldn’t produce drawings that I thought were good enough to share and upload at a fast enough pace to seemingly be able to change that in the near future.

It made drawing seem like a hopeless and fruitless endeavour, and that had been getting to my head for the last few years. In fact, one of the reasons that I had changed to this account a few years ago was that the views of my own drawings were dwarfed by the commissions that I had paid for, and that had gotten too much to my head.

Early on during my internship, I noticed that I might need to fully utilise the breaks that I had to cooldown, otherwise I might be pushing myself a little too much and would end up not feeling too well when I was done for the day. So I had to do something during those breaks that I could find relaxing, but also keep my attention for its duration.

So one day I decided to grab some paper and a pen, and just draw for the time being. But there was one key difference in my approach this time:

I drew... Entirely just to draw. There was no care about sharing or showing it off. There was no care about using it to make a name for myself. I had no care about that. I was fully apathetic towards any future prospects that I could have gotten from the drawing.

...And I suddenly found myself actually enjoying it... I had discovered a passion, a true passion, for drawing!

All because I gave myself some time to not care about being good or becoming something with it.

And that made me realise: My focus on being successful had been hampering that very success at almost every corner. That I had been too focused on becoming something that I had forgotten that it doesn’t really matter if I didn’t first enjoy what I was doing in the first place.

So perhaps apathy can be useful from time to time. To simply not care about any future prospects of something and just do it.

And once that I thought further into my past, I realise that this isn’t even the first example of this use of apathy having led to some improvements.

I think of myself as a very skilled programmer, especially when compared to my peers at uni (not that we all are programmers there, mind you). In fact, I do take a deep pride in my programming skills. And the reason for how I got good at it, I feel that I can trace back to when I started programming and the first few years of it.

Cuz guess what: I didn’t care. Despite knowing that I was likely going to end up working as a programmer already back then, I was completely apathetic towards the results of the personal projects that I did in my free-time and any future prospects possible from them.

I programmed for the sake of programming; switching from project to project on a whim. Always starting over with no care. And I never bothered to keep them somewhere for later showcasing, to the point that when I had to make a portfolio for my search for an internship, I was annoyed by myself as I wanted to show off parts of some old projects that I could remember, but I had lost them as a result of not saving them on a cloud or anything like that.

But if I had started my programming journey the same way that I started my drawing journey, then I would have never truly gotten into programming in the first place! For that apathy that I had, while it did bite me later down the road, it had the much larger benefit of ensuring that I would not be bugged down by any lack of success. For that success didn’t matter at that point; practising programming did.

Another benefit from this kind of apathy was a lack of the fear of failure: For I had never programmed anything to show it, so only I myself would see it. And those two benefits created a really good mindset for me when I was just a novice.

But now, with the toolset and skills that I have developed for myself, I can first now start to care about creating something to show off or make a name for myself. It was first at this point that I was truly ready to prove myself, and I did that with my internship (had I mentioned that I was a programmer at the company)!

So funnily enough, being apathetic towards success has led to me being more successful with something than when I cared about said success.

However, it should go without saying that apathy is really just a tool. And like any other tool, it can be misused.

After all, it will not do as much good for my programming career anymore now that I have gotten some experience in it. Quite the contrary; I likely have to start caring just a bit more about being successful with any programming projects in the future. Though I should likely still be careful not to care too much about it.

It’s why I have been attempting to always specify the kind of apathy that I have been using here: That it has only been about apathy regarding my future, not anyone else’s.

But, it has shown to be a useful tool when used properly, this kind of apathy.

...It's funny: I always try to look for the one big solution that will fix my whole life, yet all I got this year was a single, small tool like apathy... Wait...

But of course! There is probably no such thing as a big, all encompassing solution! Instead, the so-called solution is perhaps in reality just the accumulation of millions of small tools that each can make my day to day just a tiny bit better. And this use of apathy is merely just one of those tools!

So perhaps I should stop looking for that one big solution, and instead look for more tools like apathy and then figure out how to best utilise them.

And I can start by continuing to utilise apathy for practicing drawing along with the other things that I want to get some more experience in. And try to just do those things for the sake of doing them, with no care of showing off the results to anyone.

So, with that said; happy belated new year to you all!



Actually, thinking about it, these new year’s reflections are just another example of this use of apathy. For in reality, there is actually no point for me to share them at all, as they are entirely for myself and only me. And the one for the previous year fell flat on its face because I failed to be apathetic about it and tried too much with it.