I’m tired. That’s not what this post is about, but it’s very true. I got a decent amount of sleep last night, and I’m feeling better than I have in the past few days. Sleep really does make a difference–who knew? (Once again, everyfuckingbody!) I have never felt better in my life than the few months after my medical crisis because of the eight hours ofsleep I got a night for months after. It was terrific, I’ll be honest. Yes, my body was beat up and broken from what it went through, but my god. Going to bed at ten p.m. and getting up at six a.m. for several months was glorious.
Ahem.
Back to the point of my post. I want to talk about how easy it is to go down a rabbit hole when it comes to surfing the net. Let’s take YouTube. The way the home page is laid out, there are dozens of videos visible. And, you can scroll down to infinity if you want. Of course, the algorithms will show you videos based on what you’ve watched, so you can have interesting content for dozens of hours. If you say no to certain videos, you just hone your algorithm to give you more of what you want.
Which is not a bad thing, per se, but it means that for those of us who can get hyperfocused on things, it’s not great. By the way, I just learned that in the aautism/ADHD community, there’s a difference between hyperfixations and special interests. The former are obsessions that last from a few weeks to a month or two. The latter are hobbies that consume you for years. It explained so much for me personally.
Some hyperfixations I’ve had in the past: black diamond rings (not real diamonds, obviously); jigsaw puzzles; cute boxers; stuffed pigs. The last might have been more of a special interest because it lasted quite some itme, but I wasn’t constantly obsessed with it. It’s just that I was born in the year of the pig, and I felt an affinity to them. I also had a hyperfixation with kids books, mainly ones I read when I was a kid.
On the other hand, my special interests have lasted for years. At least two of them. Those would be video games (mostly FromSoft games and indie games) and Taiji weapons. That’s a subset of my interest in Taiji in general, but I’m all about the weapons. I don’t know if I would lump in my interest in Bagua in with my interest in Taiji, but they are at least adjacent to each other.
I probably would put them together in the category of internal martial arts because they are in the same category. However, they are very different to each other. On the third hard, my interest in the weapons for each is similar. Si nce I’m done teaching myself the Bagua Knives Form, I have my eye on a Double-Headed Spear Form (Bagua) to teach to myself next. But not until next year. I’m being very conservative about how often I teach myself new weapon forms because my teacher warned me not to just add them thoughtlessly. Her point was that it was better to learn one slowly and well before moving onto the next than to just learn them as quickly as possible.
I’m weird in that I don’t necessarily bury myself in my obessesions. Meaning, I practice every day, and it was getting to be too much for me (doing four or five weapon forms a day), so I pared it down two or three a day. That’s much more manageable, and it made me fall in love with the weapons again. I also do forty-five minutes of warmups/stretches and solo forms. This means a total of about an hour and fifteen minutes–which is much better.
Video games is a harder obsession for me to rein in. If I get going, I can go for hours. I can forget to eat and drink–and sometimes, even forget going to the bathroom. Courn, a content cerator I watch, said that they had to be very restrictive of their gaming because it interfered with their daily life. I feel that so hard. I’ve lost so many hours to needless gaming. And, yes, I divide my gaming into fruitful gaming and wasteful gaming.
Let’s talk about the newest one that I’m not sure if it’s a hyperfixation or a special interest. i’m leaning towards the latter because of how much it (they) has (have) consumed my life, but I also feel like I’m on the going out of it side of things. It’s Stray Kids. I discovered them around December of last year, and I’ve blazed through their content (and they have so. much. content. Not just the albums, but all the online shows they do, the variety shows they’ve been on, the concert clips, etc. It’s a lot).
I’ve included a video of them above (not sure which one I’m including, so whichever it is, it’ll be that one). I love their music. It really speaks to me, and they do things their own way. They write and produce all their songs along with all eight of them singing, rapping, and dancing. While they do have different sub-units (called rachas. 3racha–Bang Chan, Changbin, and Han. They are the writers and producers. 2racha is Changbin and Han, but they are rarely called that. Danceracha is Lee Know, Hyunjin and Felix. Vocalracha is Seungmin and I.N), they are all good at all three things.
Here’s the thing, though. I have known for some time that I would probably have to walk away at some point because they are devout Christians. At least, several of them are. And they do a bunch of queer-coded things that irritates me. Well, it’s baked into Kpop, unfortunately. Like calling each other wife and such. Which plays into fans’ queerbaiting as well. I don’t want to get into the whole cultural difference aspect of it in this post, but it’s something I’m very aware of and know that a line will be crossed one day.
I’m also aware that while they are considered weirdos for their music, they are more conventional when it comes to Korean culture. Which is not me. At all. I can say that because it’s similar to Taiwanese culture, and I’m very snubbed when I go there. Briefly, they are even more fat-phobic than America is (Taiwan), and they are not shy about saying how fat you are.
Plus, the age-based respect is not something I subscribe to, nor is addressing people by their gender. The last time I went back to Taiwan, I spent the entire time wanting to kill myself. I had to fight myself from walking into the ocean. It was a low point in my life, and I vowed to never go back again. Which, I will have to break soon (also not going to write about that in this post).
It’s not unusual for me to love someone who can’t love me back (or more to the point, someone who thinks I’m disgusting/weird/unfathomable/etc.). In fact, that’s the story of my life, especially when it comes to my passions. So it’s not surprising that I got into a group that in real life would never accept me for who I am. Or rather, they could not fathom how someone like me could exist.
I’m not saying this with hate or bitterness, really. Just a rueful laugh that I’ve done it again. Which means that at some point, I’ll walk away with regret in my heart. They’re great guys who make fantastic music. I wish them well in their careers and lives, but I know at some point, I’ll have to make that choice to walk. That’s on me–as it always is.