On Losing Yourself With Time
How do you keep the things you love alive when you don’t have the capacity to cherish and nurture them like you used to?
It’s been two years since I’ve written, edited, and published writing on a consistent basis; two years since I’ve critically analyzed any piece of reading to a level I’ve felt satisfactory; half a decade since I’ve taken lessons on my favorite instrument; two years since I’ve last played my flute in an actual ensemble, or learned a classical vocal piece, or really sat down and analyzed any music piece in depth.
In the grand scheme of things, two years is nothing. But I’ve begun to notice that two years is my brain’s biological, ticking time bomb—once the two-year-mark hits, I begin to forget things; Skills turn rusty, intuition disappears. Things that were once sharp in my memory begin to fade. And for the first time in my life—the repercussions of this has become scarily real.
I’m twenty now (I hit the two-decade mark a week ago!), and as its nearing the two-year-mark since I first entered college, it’s also the first time in two years where the skills I was practicing constantly before college—writing, music, language—which I was blessed to encounter more or less in my daily life at school and outside—have really, truly begun to fade.
I’ve been able to ride on music intuition all my life, even in the extreme cases when I only touched my instrument once a week during symphony orchestra rehearsal because I couldn’t squeeze time to practice (oops); I’ve been able to hone in my writing skills because I got the opportunity to practice constantly before college in four years of journalism and creative writing electives prior to that. Those were what defined who I was long before any line of code ever did. But now, where specialization is key and focusing purely on your specialization is more valuable than dabbling in a myriad of interests, I fear I’m starting to lose myself.
This blog has probably been the only thing that’s really kept my writing — my creative side, that is — alive. And to be completely frank, I write here on a very sporadic basis—usually when there’s something I really want to document, something I have to say about the state of whatever reality I’m currently living in, or some emotional urge I have that warrants pouring my thoughts out to an invisible audience on the other end of the screen. Of course, I have some other unpublished projects lying in another app I (stubbornly) gatekeep, but these projects have gone untouched for a while because I haven’t had the time, energy, nor mental space to really dedicate to the worldbuilding and character development I need to turn those pieces alive. When things like finishing the next homework, or attending the next office hours, or grinding for the next job interview, is more important, what excuse does a college kid have to indulge on MFA fantasies when she’s already four lectures behind on a class that takes lecture attendance very seriously?
I envy those whose hobbies and careers align so well. Don’t get me wrong—I’ve loved every compsci and math class I’ve taken at Berkeley; I love the intellectual feasts served on a silver platter, the euphoric feeling that my brain is literally expanding as I absorb new ideas, the vibing with classmates in shared misery during office hours (trauma bonding works wonders)—but these hours come at the cost of other things I love; Other parts of my personal identity that I’ve pushed to the backburner.
Up until now, stacking personal passions up on the backburner has been totally fine. Totally rationalizable. I’ve been told that putting some things I love on pause is only temporary. I’ve been reassured that with sacrifices now, I’d reap the benefits later when there’s more time. Of course, I believe that concept to a certain extent—god forbid I decide to run away from college one day, go to a secluded hut with all my tuition money, and bask in all my hobbies—because I know myself enough to know that I’d get extremely bored, wish I was back in an intellectually-stimulating environment like Cal, and totally regret it; there is wisdom in the experience of thousands of those who came before me, as well as a solid practicality in making a living wage before fully indulging on personal passions.
But what’s frightening is when the repercussions of putting things on the “temporary backburner” manifest. When you actually feel the things you once love slip away, and that temporary backburner turns into a permanent garbage disposal.
Case in point: CS61A Course Staff had our semesterly staff potluck a few weeks ago at our professor’s home, where music jam sessions are a staple tradition; People gather together to sing, improvise on the piano, play the guitar, jam on the violin, bang the drums, strum the banjo, and play virtually every instrument you can think of. Some of us music folks who have honed the craft for long enough can play pieces by ear, transpose keys in our heads to adhere to different vocal ranges, and harmonize purely based on interval knowledge and music theory. (It’s the art of relative pitch, which can be developed overtime, for those who are curious). But for the first time in my life that day, I struggled. Hard. Of course, no one could tell that I was desperately clawing at my internal senses, but I was totally, utterly disoriented. Absolutely terrified. Playing on pitch in the same key, recognizing notes to play based on random tunes, had felt natural for all 19 years of my life—until it wasn’t. Up until now, although I stopped encountering music consistently when I entered college, I’d been able to subconsciously maintain a decent level of musical prowess when it came to relative pitch and identifying tunes by ear; I naively assumed that it’d stay that way. Hitting the two-year-mark of no music finally caught up to me those few weeks ago, when I struggled to keep up with adjusting the notes of my flute to the songs I thought I knew well enough to emulate on the whim.
My friends have probably heard me yap about that instance a million times, as have my parents, but I’m not kidding when I admit that it’s truly shined a light on a reality I’ve been hiding from for a while now.
The only semblance of my past loves for writing and music — the creative writing workshops, the moments of personal peace with Chopin’s waltzes, the constant nagging for more sources and better AP style and clincher quotes —is my unwavering, stupid loyalty to the em dash — which has, lo-and-behold, become a tell-tale sign of ChatGPT. (In fact, I was interviewed by a startup a while ago whose only goal was to literally generate writing content for you—full-on essays and such, and I remember laughing, aghast at the sheer stupidity of it all.)
Since then, I’ve call my parents all the time to note this fact: I feel like my creativity has been slipping away from my fingertips, and there’s simply not much I can do about it. My major, the resources that I‘m most eager to take advantage of at such a computationally-excellent school, ultimately do not align with what I love on a personal level. I write, jokingly on my website, that sight reading is a long lost forte of mine and that I was an Editor-in-Chief in a past life. It’s not a funny play on words anymore. It’s real.
My stir for writing has been waning for a long while because let’s be real—it isn’t very valued in the courses I take at the college level. (The other day, I actually forgot how to write a decently arguable thesis in the Tech, Society & Power Seminar I’m taking, which is just … absurdly embarrassing.)
On one hand, I feel like I’m gaining so much at Berkeley with the academic rigor; On the other hand, I feel like I’m losing myself and what I once valued most. And this duality is so difficult to reconcile with. I feel like I’m losing the musical skills and the writing skills that I care most about on a personal level—that have defined who I am for my entire life, long before I ever made a Strava account, joined cross, or ran a marathon. It’s never been this hard to articulate things, pen on paper— yet trying to pour my thoughts just feels so stilted these days. Even now, I’m struggling to write this piece with the fluidity that I’m used to—with the naturalness I feel like a heart-to-heart like this should deserve.
I was never a pure STEM kid to begin with, and up until last year, I never succumbed to the notion that I was going to be. But now, I just don’t know. I haven’t taken a humanities class in a year, and it’s wrenching my soul while simultaneously freeing time for major-specific pursuits that have honed my computer science skills, something I desperately need. With the nature of my major class’s workload, a lot of non-major classes inevitably fall to a lower priority. Never has the idea of “breadths,” nor my minor, been a pain or questionable addition to me until now — in fact, it’s explicitly why I applied to CS, rather than EECS, when I filled in my college apps. Yet it’s scary how breadths have become a burden, how I’m slowly losing interest in the humanistic lens that I used to care so much about, how I’m forgetting why I decided to pursue my minor in the first place. Never has writing been such a struggle, nor has critical, thoughtful analysis been such a pain, nor has music been so … unnatural. So unintuitive. So foreign.
One of my good friends stated a truth during office hours today that I’ve tried to hide from myself for a while.
“You know—you haven’t published on your medium blog in a while,” she observed in conversation.
My reply to her was instantaneous. “ I … just don’t know. I have nothing important to say.”
Indeed, it’s been nearly half a year, with this semester almost over and not a single writing piece in sight until now. Why? If I was being completely honest to myself—I’ve been losing this side of me; This side that cherished articulate, critical thought; that allowed writing to flow like a river; that identified so strongly with musicianship. I can just feel these integral parts of who I am—
slowly
chipping
away.
And isn’t that a frightening thing to say?
