Consumption

I'm sitting here now, thinking about what to write for this long article; I've had the ideas all floating around in my head, seeming to fit together perfectly up there, but now that I actually go to write, I'm left empty, having trouble getting it all out and being able to articulate it properly. I sit at the computer screen, looking at this website I've created, while I try to think of how to get my ideas out. As I'm scanning the page, I see the word 'Consumption', the title name I wrote this article to have. I think to myself, "...what does it actually mean to consume? I have an idea of what it means, but there's probably more that I'm missing." So I drag my cursor to the 'new tab' button to look up the definition 'consumption', to finally find out the 'true' meaning of consumption... and then I stop myself. "This is exactly what this entire article is about," I think to myself. "This entire article is about my struggle of consuming information and never being satisfied, stuck in an endless loop of researching and filling my brain with copious amounts of information, I can't be looking up all this shit over and over," I think to myself again, as I then proceed to think to myself, "Did I use the word copious right? What does that word actually mean? I should look up the definition of that word to make sure it's right before I use it in that sentence,".

When I was 7 years old, I made my first YouTube channel, named 'RavashTV'. It was a joint venture between me, my sister, and my cousin; I deleted it out of envy when they eventually decided to go off and make their own YouTube channel without me. For 8 years, I've regretted that decision immensely, as that YouTube channel brings me so many amazing memories of me being creative and opening my mind up to the world. Thankfully, there still remains a 'side channel' I created; 'Ravash3DTV'. The '3D' in the name comes from the fact that I was trying to make 3D videos, as it was brand new to me and YouTube at the time. The two videos I uploaded on the channel are not even in 3D. The first uploaded video is me, at age 8, with fucked up teeth, whispering in the garage to announce the channel, for no discernible reason, while I wave awkwardly at the camera, smile, and wink at the end, again, for no discernible reason. The second uploaded video is me talking like an 8 year old would, trying to demonstrate and take advantage of the supposed '3D' effects my video was supposed to have, by punching at the screen to make it look like the fist is coming at you, showing the individual rocks on the ground, etc., all while I make 'high-quality' sound effects with my mouth to really add that extra 3D 'immersion' to the video. Needless enough, these videos are awful. They're cute, because it's just a squeaky-voiced kid goofing off with a camera, but truthfully, they are awful. Like stated before, I don't have any videos saved from the original RavashTV channel since it was deleted, but they likely follow the exact same act; just a stupid kid making sound effects and goofy observations about the world with no substance at all. Yet, if my memory serves me correctly, I believe that I uploaded anywhere from 30 - 50 videos on the channel, despite them being horrible. I had no knowledge of how to properly record, no idea of how to properly structure a video, and not a single bit of quality on the videos; regardless, I absolutely loved doing it.

​As the years progressed, I would be 10, 11, and 12 years old, and I kept making new YouTube videos. They eventually evolved from simple camera recordings to Windows Movie Maker videos, complete with intros, outros, and more. I started drawing and making 'animations', which were just still-frame PowerPoint drawings. These drawings, of course, were terrible. Across my new journey, I encountered many fans (but also many new haters, which I don't blame them for doing). I made gameplay recordings, drawings, animations, websites, music, mods for video games, and even more. My editing technique evolved; first I started off at simple iPhone recordings, moving to Windows Movie Maker, all the way up to Camtasia Studio, a professional video editing program. I was a non-stop creation machine. Additionally, I got to work making video games, as they were a passion of mine. I started off at age 6, making games on a website called 'Sploder', which still exists today, and which used to host my games, until they were seemingly deleted by the site. These games, were also not that great. When I was 10 years old, I would take a game-making class in-person, using the software 'GameMaker 8.1'. By the end of the class, I had made a Minecraft clone all on my own without learning a single thing; the entire class crowded around my computer, in fascination at the game I had created. This game, also, was not that great.

I knew nothing, but made something. I would churn out so many things through my own volition, whether it was an animation, a video, a game, a piece of music, or a website/program. I was a child, so the amount of knowledge I could obtain/process was very limited, so like stated before, pretty much everything was made out of my own volition and problem-solving abilities. The amount of things I created was amazing; one of my game creations was even played by a big YouTuber at the time. A terrible Minecraft map I made at age 10 was played by the Yogscast, a very popular (at the time) Minecraft channel that I adored watching; the video received 1.7 million views, which was insane. Another random YouTuber I had never heard of made a video on my map; it outdid the Yogscast video by nearly 10 times in views, getting 11 million views, which I cannot even believe to this day, at age 20.

And that is where we get to the main point of this article... age 20. My life is radically different from what it was many, many years ago. No longer do I create anything, but mostly lie in bed and do nothing but consume things that other people have created. I blow money on dozens of games to play, chasing a high of trying to find that 'perfect' game that will bring me back to happiness. I am far more intellectual and knowledgeable than I was as a child, spending my time consuming psychology, philosophy, and self-improvement content, in an attempt to figure out my life. I'll spend hours watching these videos, trying to figure out all the possible ways to make my life better than it currently is; in my mind, the more information I've gathered, the better I'll be at doing it and implementing it. When I'm not doing that, I'm watching video essays on video games, or game reviews, dissecting the in-depth design of the game, hoping to find the perfect game that encapsulates the perfect design philosophies I've researched, or I'm full of hope and wonder to make my own game with the knowledge I've gathered. This is a stark contrast to me as a little 8 - 10 year old, where I knew nothing; everything I did was completely on my own. Making those YouTube videos was done completely on my own with no tutorials or training. If I did watch a tutorial, it was only one, as I was eager to get back to working on my projects. Nowadays, I have an idea, and can't stand getting to work on any projects, as I'd rather watch tutorial upon tutorial, video upon video, article upon article, to make me feel better about 'getting it right'. "If I have all the knowledge I need, this thing will come out perfect... I just need one more video to watch before I get started on this, because this one will be the video that gives me the answers I need, and this one will be the video that gives me the confidence I need to get started making something amazing,".

This doesn't just infect my approach to content creation, it infects my entire outlook on life. I'm always in search of the 'perfect' thing, and the most important part to me is finding it, because then I know I can approach it and take action towards it. I've had many gaps of unemployment because I was so terrified to just 'get any job', because I always had to make sure that the boss wasn't mean, that the job wasn't menial, that I was capable of doing the job, etc... if I had picked the wrong job, I would be 'stuck' in this limbo of a terrible job, which is hell, even for one hour. I've never had a girlfriend, not just because of my debilitating self-consciousness about my lifestyle, unemployment, eating habits, and hygiene, but also because I'm scared that she won't be 'right'; "What if we don't get along on the date? What if it falls flat? What if our personalities are incompatible? What if we weren't meant to be together? What if we do get along, but get into conflicts later? This girlfriend is eventually going to turn into a wife one day, will she be fit enough to share a life with, as well as kids? How do I make sure she isn't going to divorce me like my parents divorced each other? What will that mean for my kids and finances? Will I be stuck in a terrible situation where I picked the wrong girlfriend and will have subjected my finances to hell, and have subjected my children to sadness and an improper family structure?"... so I'll never ask somebody out, because all those things could go wrong, until I find 'the perfect one'. I'll never speak out loud anymore, or go to any social events, because "I don't know enough about the event and I don't know enough about the subject matter at hand,". As a result, in attempt to escape monotony and dread, I live an ironically monotonous and dreadful life, where my days consist of mindlessly watching YouTube, researching (technically 'hoping') for a better life, sleeping, and eating; where I once had a life with many friends and things to do, I now have nothing... not because I am a bad person or made any choices for them to leave me, in fact, it is quite the opposite; I have pushed away everything and everyone as I now have such high self-consciousness that I won't reach out to friends that seemingly want to hang around me, and I don't do anything anymore, even if people would really like to see me there. This is not other people's problem, it is my problem. I believe I am a worse person than I used to be; I am too much of a loser, I have no friends, I have no idea how to talk to anybody, I can't focus on anything, I am too dumb to do anything, I'm too lazy to do something I don't want to do, I have no interests, I am too fearful, I am shallow and have nothing to say, etc.

But I look back on my childhood, and can really objectively see that most of that stuff is not true, and that I am far more skilled at virtually everything compared to when I was a child. I am infinitely more intelligent, more knowledgeable, more strong (both physically and psychologically), more optimistic, more socially skilled and charismatic, more kind and accepting, more open, and more self-aware than I was as a child, and yet, I am putting practically none of those skills to use. If those terrible YouTube videos I made managed to pull over 600,000+ views on YouTube, and that terrible Minecraft map I made managed to pull over 13+ million views on YouTube, what could I do now with my skills today? If I was able to make tons of friends with terrible social skills and complete shallowness as a child, what could I do now with my skills today? But more importantly, how on earth could I possibly be so doubtful of my ability to do anything nowadays, despite the fact that I did all these things as a kid, but often 100 times worse than I could have possibly done it today?

Ironically, I believe that this major increase in knowledge and skill has handicapped me. They don't call it self-'consciousness' for no reason. You have all this knowledge in your head, all these expectations placed on yourself, that when you don't seem to be doing them correctly, then you believe that you have failed. Ignorance is bliss, as they say; these problems would not have fazed me as a kid, because I did not have any knowledge about them, much less did I care about them. I did not care about how I was perceived, so I just did basically anything I wanted. I wasn't concerned with my things being a pinnacle of quality, I just wanted to make something. I also did not perceive consequences and the concept of 'my lifespan' and finitude, so everything I did was with a disregard to consequences.

On top of that, consuming things fills a void in my life, that again, ironically, has stemmed from my high amounts of self-consciousness, that has stemmed from me consuming things... it's a vicious cycle. I consume things because I feel lacking, like I need to know the answers, and I don't do anything until I've gotten 'everything', but this ends up making me feel empty, lazy, and lonely, so I consume even more things to fill the emptiness that I have created by not fulfilling my basic human needs, and then I consume even more things to figure out how to fix my emptiness, and thus the cycle continues. Consuming things is my cheap and easy way to make me feel more connected to the world and to feel like I'm doing something, even though quite literally the opposite is happening.

This has made creating things all the more difficult, as I am so used to consuming things and feeling comforted by consuming things, that when I am not consuming things, I feel empty. I feel empty writing this article right now, because I no longer have consumption to fill the void of needs I am neglecting. Creating things feels tiring now, as I am not used to it, and I feel empty without my instant gratification of consumption.

This change in myself happened right around July 12th of 2016 (my 13th birthday), when I went out to buy a PS4 with Call of Duty: Black Ops III, a game I had been so hyped to play. This game did quite the opposite; this game made me angry. It made me scream. I stopped talking to my friends. No longer did I play games for fun, but to dominate opponents and get positive affirmations from the game. Call of Duty is the definition of a 'consumerist' game; the game releases every year with no changes and expects you to buy it every year regardless, and the game offers zero challenge, depth, or creativity; just shoot bad guys on a small, overly simplistic map. It's a stark contrast to the games I played before, like Minecraft, where everything you did was through your own volition, where the world around you was built completely by you. Call of Duty is a 'fast food' game, a game that gives you cheap and easy thrills for little to no effort, and offers no creativity whatsoever. Before Call of Duty, I played games for fun, never getting angry at them ever. After Call of Duty, I played games to boost my ego, getting angry at them every single day. Additionally, since the game offers no creativity whatsoever, challenging yourself in creative endeavors becomes impossible. After Call of Duty, I stopped making YouTube videos. I stopped drawing. I stopped animating. I stopped making video games. When I went back to do those things, I felt drained; playing games like Minecraft left me drained, as Call of Duty simply plays itself and tells you what to do, rather than you figuring out what to do. Fun fact: It has been proven that games like Call of Duty actually reduce gray matter in the hippocampus of your brain, due to the sheer simplicity and hand-holding nature of the game, with its minimap telling you exactly where to go without figuring out how to do it on your own, literally causing your brain to degenerate. This was no longer a fun experience, but a toxic addiction, like the abusive couples you see in movies that have fiery passion for each other, but are very clearly wrong for each other, where they often get into explosive arguments constantly, yet still find themselves crawling back to each other again and again, addicted to the highs of their passion.

So while quitting Call of Duty is better for my brain (and everyone's brain), I'm still left with the healing scars it has left on my brain. I still over-consume things, and I'm still never fully committed to anything, for fear that I'll get stuck in it if it isn't the perfect thing. Even though I still struggle with these things, there are things I have learned (through hard numbers and statistics) that ease my worries a bit:

Number one: you will never find the perfect thing, it is just not possible; even if you think you found the 'perfect' thing, it can change into something else, because things are not static, they are always changing, especially with humans, because we are not robots. It is just not realistically and statistically possible to get the 'perfect' thing you desire, as it would be something like a 99.99999999999% chance to get it exactly the way you want. Life is a series of compromises, there will always be things you don't want to do.

Number two: 85% of your worries never happen, and with the 15% that do, 75% of the time, they aren't as bad as you thought they'd be. This shit happens to me all the time, where everything I worry about doesn't happen at all. Consuming a bunch of information to prepare for these scares in your head won't help. Ironically, all the bad things that have happened to me in my life were things that I weren't worried about at all, and all of the great things that happened to me in my life stemmed from overcoming worry.

Number three: it is literally impossible to know everything, especially if you are trying to put it into action. If you were to research and consume things your entire life 24/7, you wouldn't have researched even 1% of the total information created on Earth before you die, because there is just so much information out there. Regardless, even if you spent your entire life learning and knowing everything in the hopes that it will one day finally pay off, well... expect disappointment, because if you spend your entire life learning and waiting to finally get the perfect thing, you won't get it, because you'll be fuckin' dead, because you spent all your time learning. It will have been too late regardless.

Number four: you are competent. Many people underestimate their competency at things (of course, many people do overestimate it); you'd be surprised how well you do when you get out there and do it. I started writing this article having absolutely no idea what to write, feeling absolutely braindead, and here I am now probably 2 hours later, having written over 2,000 words with the ideas just flowing out effortlessly, as the ideas in my head were always there (it just takes time to get them going, especially when you're not used to putting them out there). Especially if you are like me, and you research so many different topics and whatnot, you are more than competent. Regardless, most people can just learn to be competent at something on the fly. What will stop you from being competent is all the ideas in your head telling you that you aren't competent.

I'm too lazy to read over this and proofread it right now, I'll edit it if anyone notices any weird sentence structure or poorly explained ideas in the future, but that is all I have to say for this little article. Just remember, if you're struggling with this same shit I go through; I had no idea what to write for this article in the beginning, but 5 minutes in I got the ball rolling slightly, and it was just downhill from there (literally, as in gaining momentum, so 'downhill' in a good way, lol). What the people around you are telling you is true; just do it. You probably know enough, you are probably good enough, and you can probably do this... maybe. And if you can't, it's probably not as bad as you think.