Identity

    For the past 2 weeks, I have been tired, stressed, and confused about my direction in life. One of the biggest factors is college, I need to go to a university just to have a chance at a job, and I really wish I didn't get stuck with a generation born in a shitty economy so I could just apply somewhere and be done with it, but college is stressful and the only feasible option, and it's left me feeling awful every time I consider this. Basically, I hate college. I hate how it bites into my free time, how I have to put forth effort and drive I never knew I had, how I have to maintain a C average just to keep my financial aid, how I never have time for my own projects, and how the vast majority of these classes are irrelevant to me. College is a waste of time to me, but it's the only way to get a job.

    But I think I normally hold up well under the stress most of the time. The other day, something really added to it though, and it's something that is a repeated frustration for me.

    I tried to explain it to a friend last night in Skype, but the problem is, I don't know how to say it to anyone. I think I got it across, but it still seems wrong. I know what I want to say, I'm worried about how it will be received, mostly.

So, just bear with me here.

    First, I just want to say that I'm not unconcerned with other people. A lot of my reactions and attitudes about certain subjects lead people to believe that I'm callous, but that isn't the case at all. One person, for example, doesn't understand why I don't put my actual photo online and why I don't care to see other people's photos. Whenever I have explained this to him in the past, he has shown a negative opinion for my reasons, and this is partly why I have a hard time expressing them.

    Let me make something perfectly clear: I don't get on the internet to deal with real-life shit. I don't care about where you live, what you really look like, and what's going on with your marriage or relationship, and I have no desire to share these things with other people. This often gives people a lot of wrong impressions about me that I find frustrating.

    The most common one is that I'm not very open. Someone invited me to a skype channel because it was connected to a Minecraft server I played on for a little while. (I stopped because it wasn't really a creative server and I got bored of having to farm materials for my projects) But I found out that most of the conversations were things I couldn't relate to. They were either about people talking about games I did not care to play, or about some real-life situations of theirs, and every attempt I made at conversation didn't go anywhere. (I posted links to articles about video games in general and even tried to post links about games I thought they would enjoy) Eventually, this frustrated me and I started pointing out that nobody paid any attention to me.

    Someone said that I was something like an unknown entity; that he didn't know anything about me. I thought that was kind of rude, if only because of how much I talk. So I asked them for specific information and they asked for my age and what I did. I told them I was 21 and I draw. (http://kazeskyfox.deviantart.com/)

    After talking more about what specifically they wanted to know, I had a pretty good idea about what they were interested in. So I told them about the state I live in and how I want to move, all the while trying to place in some type of video-game related part of the sentence and after a while, finding an excuse to talk about my character and how I designed her, but at that point, the chat went quiet.

    Assuming things about people and their intentions or meanings has gotten me into a lot of trouble in the past, so I didn't really say what I thought. But I went to bed feeling frustrated, not feeling like any of the subjects I wanted to talk about were acknowledged and none of the hints I left about how I felt about the subjects got through.

    I spent the day being angry about it. It was a school day so sitting in class listening to lectures only allowed my feelings to simmer inside me. At one point in basic algebra, I had to immediately change the course of my thinking so that I wouldn't cry in class. When I got home, I didn't feel like really doing anything even though I had homework. I worked on it reluctantly while trying to figure out how I could ask the questions I wanted to.

    One of the biggest problems here is that I really don't have a lot of options for talking to people about the subjects that I like. My own skype channel is always dead, some of my friends turned their alerts off and never pay attention to it (Which I view as a type of betrayal) and none of the IRCs I go to are really focused on indie games and furries. Even some furry channels don't care much about furry conversations.

    So, this being the only place that anyone was active on, I tried to find a way to not be ignored on it. Asking my friend was the first mistake. I'll just post the skype conco in here...

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[4/25/2012 11:18:10 PM] Kaze: Can I talk to you about something?
[4/25/2012 11:23:13 PM] Phillip McKeen: mehbe
[4/25/2012 11:24:56 PM] Phillip McKeen: What's up?
[4/25/2012 11:25:50 PM] Kaze: Why does komoto think I'm an unknown entity?
[4/25/2012 11:26:04 PM] Kaze: I do not feel like I gave him an answer he likes.
[4/25/2012 11:27:36 PM] Kaze: And it really bothers me because I don't know what anyone wants me to say, and I really do not have anywhere else to go for conversation right now because my skype channel is dead and the two people who are online turned off alerts, and the only person that I can really talk to with similar interests is WAC, and he has not been doing well lately.
[4/25/2012 11:27:58 PM] Phillip McKeen: Lol
[4/25/2012 11:28:13 PM] Phillip McKeen: You did a decent job of coming out of your shell earlier.
[4/25/2012 11:28:24 PM] Kaze: What shell?
[4/25/2012 11:28:25 PM] Phillip McKeen: Live in hickville, want to move somewhere with more geeks, etc.
[4/25/2012 11:28:37 PM] Phillip McKeen: You talked about you, rather than your online presence.
[4/25/2012 11:28:53 PM] Kaze: I was afraid you'd say that.
[4/25/2012 11:30:15 PM] Kaze: I tried to hint at something the other day but I don't think anyone noticed it...
[4/25/2012 11:31:44 PM] Kaze: And I'm depressed and frustrated because of how hard it is to communicate it.
[4/25/2012 11:37:44 PM] Phillip McKeen: Lol
[4/25/2012 11:37:45 PM] Phillip McKeen: Which part?
[4/25/2012 11:37:57 PM] Phillip McKeen: You can dump anything on me in a direct convo and I'll likely not be offended.
[4/25/2012 11:38:12 PM] Phillip McKeen: There's stuff I'd rather you not air in public, but I'm a good listener 1-on-1.
[4/25/2012 11:39:20 PM] Kaze: I am trying to think of a way to say this without it coming out wrong.
[4/25/2012 11:40:21 PM] Kaze: I'm not unconcerned with people, I'm just concerned with a different part of them.
[4/25/2012 11:42:06 PM] Kaze: [Monday, April 23, 2012 11:43 PM] Kaze:

<<< It used to be on RP sites, you could have a section for a bio, and when people would ask me personal questions, I'd link to that. :V
[4/25/2012 11:42:21 PM] Phillip McKeen: Can you elaborate?
[4/25/2012 11:42:36 PM] Kaze: Well, look at my avatar
[4/25/2012 11:42:42 PM] Kaze: I'm a furry
[4/25/2012 11:42:52 PM] Kaze: And that's who I want to be online.
[4/25/2012 11:43:28 PM] Kaze: And it kind of frustrates me when people think that I'm being less shy or whatever because I start talking about RL stuff.
[4/25/2012 11:43:42 PM] Kaze: I don't avoid talking about it because I'm shy.
[4/25/2012 11:44:11 PM] Kaze: I don't talk about it because I don't care, and I don't want people to associate me with that part of me that is stuck in the real world; the outside me.
[4/25/2012 11:44:11 PM] Phillip McKeen: The folks in "General Chat" don't want to know your furry, and don't take it personal.
[4/25/2012 11:44:30 PM] Phillip McKeen: They want to know the stuck in the real world you.
[4/25/2012 11:44:36 PM] Phillip McKeen: Never know, you might discover something about you.
[4/25/2012 11:44:50 PM] Kaze: I don't want them to though.
[4/25/2012 11:45:11 PM] Kaze: Sabo had an argument with me over it once in a Steam chat
[4/25/2012 11:45:28 PM] Kaze: He thinks it's a continuous RP; and he's right, but at the same time...
[4/25/2012 11:45:34 PM] Kaze: It isn't fake.
[4/25/2012 11:46:22 PM] Kaze: I think I, myself, am more fake; I gave myself this name, I gave myself this identity from inside me; my name was designated to me by another human, it has meaning to them, not me. My appearance was designated to me by nature, not by choice.
[4/25/2012 11:47:13 PM] Kaze: The picture I have is my picture, because I designed it, not nature, not God(s), not my mother, me.
[4/25/2012 11:47:37 PM] Kaze: And it is really important to me that people acknowledge that.
[4/25/2012 11:47:57 PM] Kaze: And it is really frustrating, and depressing, when people do not.
[4/25/2012 11:48:23 PM] Kaze: If they don't want to know about the identity that I created myself, they don't want to know me.
[4/25/2012 11:49:21 PM] Kaze: And in a similar situation,
[4/25/2012 11:50:05 PM] Kaze: I do not care about people's photos, where they work or live, what color they are, what gender they are, or whatever else about them that they couldn't choose.
[4/25/2012 11:50:16 PM] Kaze: I care about what they decide they are.
[4/25/2012 11:50:31 PM] Kaze: I care about what they create and imagine.
[4/25/2012 11:51:02 PM] Kaze: That has more value than anything, and that can be communicated powerfully online, even used as their entire identity.
[4/25/2012 11:51:24 PM] Kaze: Does this make sense?
[4/25/2012 11:54:09 PM] Kaze: I had to get that out, but I didn't want to unless I knew people were really trying for what I thought they were.
[4/25/2012 11:57:21 PM] Phillip McKeen: [Wednesday, April 25, 2012 11:49 PM] Kaze:

<<<  where they work or live, what color they are, what gender they are
[4/25/2012 11:57:26 PM] Phillip McKeen: That isn't what we're talking about
[4/25/2012 11:57:28 PM] Phillip McKeen: It isn't just a/s/l
[4/25/2012 11:58:04 PM] Kaze: Can you explain?
[4/25/2012 11:58:22 PM] Phillip McKeen: We want to know what you want out of real life, what choices you've made, etdc.
[4/25/2012 11:58:43 PM] Kaze: I thought I told people...
[4/25/2012 11:58:51 PM] Kaze: I draw.
[4/25/2012 11:59:00 PM] Kaze: I work on being an indie dev.
[12:00:03 AM] Kaze: I even linked to my dA, I post there frequently and I post journals there.
[12:04:01 AM] Kaze: And I don't think there's a lack of opinions coming from me.
[12:04:30 AM] Kaze: I even post articles a lot; I thought that would say a lot about me.
[12:05:25 AM] Phillip McKeen: Like I said, you've been getting better.  The important thing about the public / group channels is there are people there that can be offended.  If you want to be welcome, try not to exercise your 1st ammendment rights quite so thoroughly.
[12:06:00 AM] Phillip McKeen: [Wednesday, April 25, 2012 11:56 PM] Phillip McKeen:

<<< where they work or liveIt is a little about that.
[12:06:15 AM] Phillip McKeen: But not necessarily city as much as type of city... and job over type of job.
[12:06:48 AM] Kaze: I can't relate to those kinds of conversations.
[12:07:22 AM] Kaze: I got fired from my last job and my focus and interest in current events is in video game culture.
[12:07:45 AM] Kaze: Everything I find out about what goes on in this city is second-hand
[12:08:54 AM] Kaze: So normally I just let those conversations slide by.
[12:09:07 AM] Kaze: But I can't seem to start any and that's really irritating.
[12:09:22 AM] Kaze: Almost all video game talk is restricted to one game.
[12:09:34 AM] Kaze: (And people think I have limited game tastes)
[12:09:47 AM] Kaze: And that's the only subject I want to talk about.
[12:11:14 AM] Kaze: I mean, like I said, I post a lot of articles
[12:11:56 AM] Kaze: It just pisses me off that nobody says anything about them whereas WAC would or anyone on Sonic Retro would or most of my old friends would.
[12:12:37 AM] Kaze: I do not think I'm getting better if I'm still ignored on the same level.
[12:14:47 AM] Phillip McKeen: I'm sure you will find communities willing to talk about what you want to talk about in the context of every indie game and furries.
[12:14:54 AM] Phillip McKeen: General Chat isn't one of them.
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I left the channel early this morning.

    Now I want to say what is hard for me to say and what frustrates me so much: Ever since I was a kid, I have rejected this world. Until the internet, I was, by choice, living inside my mind, with imaginary friends and outlandish concepts. The entire reason the internet makes me social is because I CAN still be that way on it. I drew my avatar, my fursona, that's who I am, that's who I want to be. The internet made it possible for all my dreams to still be a reality; my desire to make video games, talk about games and cartoons, and imagination, and even roleplay. I get on the internet to be my true identity, and thus, I do not want to drag all this real-life baggage onto it. Real-life is this thing I have to exist in when I can't play a game or get online or read. I do not live in the real world and that is by choice, not limitation, I do not talk about it by choice, I do not ask about it from others by choice.

    And you might think that makes me fake, but I think the identity I built for myself online is more true than anything in the real world. I chose my name, I chose how I look. My real name is worthless to me, it was designated by someone else, not me. I didn't pick who I was born as, I didn't choose to be born where I am, but I am who I am online because of me! Not my mother, not nature, not whatever god you believe in, ME! And that makes it more valuable.

    And like I said in that Skype chat, if people reject the representation of me online, they reject who I really am. This is who I am, this is who I want to be, this is how I want people to see me, this is me!