Gabriel Wright

Being alone

As of right now, the two people I see the most of are definitely my flatmate and my girlfriend.

Around 2 weeks ago - both of them went away. My flatmate went on a religious retreat, my girlfriend visited her sister. I was made redundant around a month ago - it’s unfortunate but my previous company was a startup, so it wasn’t too unexpected. In the immediate aftermath of being made redundant, both my flatmate and girlfriend helped fill the void and I had a handful of pre-planned events and tasks to keep me busy: filming my first “short-film” Tash & Sash, visiting friends, going to my friend’s album launch.

But once August was over and both my flatmate and girlfriend went away for their respective trips, I was left with a largely empty calendar and very quiet flat to watch over. So much time to work with, but because of the pressures from being umemployed - it didn’t really feel like “free” time.

Time to grind

Before my flatmate went away he emphasised, “you can lock in for like two weeks and grind” and he was right. The flat was quieter, there were less distractions - I had more time to work on job applications and side projects:

In the video below Masahiro Sakurai, creator of Kirby and Super Smash Bros, talks about this idea of internal pressure:

In short: Sakurai suggests an approach to creating output - where you keep your internal pressure high when working on a project, and thus keep momentum, by refraining from walking through your ideas with others. For example, when working on a game concept proposal - explaining your idea to another person, while good for getting some feedback, might release some of that sense of reward you get from working on your idea… it gives you a partial sense of having completed your project - taking away some of your steam.

I think when working on these projects and applying to jobs over the last 2 weeks, all while on my own in the flat, I was creating this “cooking pot” of internal pressure. Thinking about what my flatmate said before he left, I got excited about the idea that I could keep the pressure really high and achieve loads over the next 2 weeks.

My internal pressure was building, momentum was growing - I was “locked in”. But I found that the more I “locked in” and grinded alone in the flat, the harder it was to reach out to connect with the outside world.

Time pressure

I should emphasise at this point that I am not generally a “lonely” person. I feel off writing a blog that characterises this recent 2 weeks as “isolation” because I recognise that there’s people who are truly isolated and don’t have personal connections to reach out to. It wasn’t like I did no socialising over the last 2 weeks. I met up with friends, went to a drama class, watched films with my sister, played games online with friends. Also I wasn’t totally alone, I had my flatmate’s cat simba to keep me company:

Cute photo of simba

Regardless, I did notice a shift inside, this tension building inside.

Applying for jobs is a goal with huge scope. It feels like there’s always more you can do and in my case there’s a financial pressure. I have enough of a financial buffer to last until Christmas, but Christmas isn’t that far away. It can be hard to sit still and there’s a heavy guilt when I’m not working directly on job applications or practicing for software development interviews.

My sleep was poor. At night I was paranoid. Even when spending time to relax, there’s was this heavy feeling of dissatisfaction - that I should be working harder. Even if it isn’t directly on software development tasks, I should be editing Tash & Sash, working on my script for my next short film. It felt like I was on a treadmill - and if I don’t keep actively pushing forward then I would be regressing.

There’s that tinge of frustration that comes from waiting for job applications as well. Recently I got rejected from a Software Engineering role at the final stage. My feedback was that I underperformed on one of the coding exercises. It’s unfortunate - but I was half expecting it, there was a slight choke on the day. It’s all practice, and now I have come through to the other side appreciative of what I gained from the process. But while going through that process of waiting and then facing rejection was definitely tough. I was very keen on the role, and quickly become attached to it. The wait between my final interview and the result was about a week, which from what I understand is standard, but I found it agonising.

My brain was constantly ticking in the background, ruminating over little slip ups I made in the interviews. Minor inconveniences at that time lit up my soul. I was making Dahl and I spilt lentils all over the floor. Looking down at the pulses littering the floor, I was fuming - but it wasn’t just anger, there was this wildly inflamed sense of grief. I felt like such a failure.

Meditation and doing nothing

My flatmate went away on a Buddhist retreat. He often speaks with me about his practice, the “Dharma”. I can’t explain their world view succinctly, I don’t know enough and am not articulate enough, but what I have taken from it is that Buddhists refine the ability to dissect how our internal worlds affect the way we experience the external world. My flatmate focuses on this idea that the dualist distinction between us and the external world is a farce. From his understanding, all experiences of the world are filtered through the individual’s internal understanding of the world, there is no separation.

Applying this to my case with the spilt lentils, it’s clear I am bringing some emotional baggage from my internal world to that experience. Something there is setting me off, it’s clearly not worth crying over spilt lentils !!!

Meditation for Buddhists has many purposes, but one role it serves I think is to helps us to detangle the emotions that we feel in a given situation.

After my intense emotional reaction from spilling the lentils, I started setting some time aside for brief meditations. I didn’t want to schedule them in, because that would make it feel like just another task, and I wouldn’t be too prescriptive on how I would meditate, but I just tried to be aware… if things are feeling too much… I’ll go sit down in the living room for a bit and do nothing.

Sometimes I would actively meditate, you know eyes closed… try keep track of breathing - the classic way, but other times I would just sit and stare at the wall and space out. My brain would try flick back to planning future tasks, timetabling, prioritising - I would recognise those thoughts and let them fade away, not yank them or fight with them.

Interview experiences

Sitting alone in the living room, doing nothing, I was brought back to memories of when I interviewed at Oxford. I went to Warwick to study Mathematics & Philosophy, but I initially interviewed to go to Oxford. The interviews were strange. I felt so small when talking to these professors. Seriously out of my depth. In my first interview I was asked about Sets, I didn’t know about Sets, I doubt the interviewer expected me to know about sets… but regardless when confronted with this topic I was unsure of, I broke down and cried. It was incredibly embarrassing, I realised in the moment that they may have been just testing how I responded to being thrown new ideas - but I just couldn’t bond/interact with these authority figures. In another interview I was asked to take off my coat at the start, but for some reason I just refused??? And after that it was bad vibes for the rest of the interview.

On the one hand, I think the interviews actually served their purpose very well, because I don’t think I would have fit Oxford. I struggled in the interviews, maybe I just didn’t have the natural ability. Plus that anxiety I had during the interviews, I might’ve had my whole time there. Warwick was amazing, I made so many friends and memories that I’ll cherish forever :).

But there is also a part of me that feels deep shame for not getting in. It’s weird, I wouldn’t have enjoyed myself but I probably resent the fact that, at least at that point, I wasn’t the type of person who would fit in there. I am not very proud of my degree at Warwick. I feel slightly cruel/harsh when I admit that - it is something I should be proud of… my friends who produced worse results than me probably wouldn’t appreciate the perspective I have on it. But it is how I feel. Even with that first class degree, I feel I wasn’t focused - I could have achieved more on my degree.

I feel inadequate

Being rejected on the last stage of that Software Engineering interview process, wrought intense pain and shame. And while it’s true that the pressure of being unemployed, and the absence of my flatmate or my girlfriend heightened my internal tensions - it wasn’t like that internal tension didn’t already exist.

Reflecting on the fact that I am not proud of my academics, would I have been proud if I went to Oxford? Would any achievement be enough? It seems obvious that the answer is no.

This website feels contradictory sometimes, because I am trying to strike a balance: make a personal blog, personal portfolio where I show what I share my thoughts, share projects I am interested in - but also be professional enough to where prospective recruiters could find my site and refer me to roles. Those two goals feel at odds with each other because it brings me back to chasing validation, an accolade, or approval. I get obsessed with being perfect, being the traditional “best” version I can be in society.

Did I actually want to go to Oxford after the interviews? Probably no. But do I feel shame from the fact I didn’t get accepted?? – yes - definitely yes - because it feels like a blemish on my record. Being alone over the last 2 weeks, I guess there’s less contact to air my inner doubts to, to have others ground me, and I spiraled down into this feeling of not being good enough. I would try to escape that spiral by working harder, but it would only makes me feel I am not working hard enough, dragging me deeper in.

My Loved Ones

My girlfriend is the best. She’s funny, sensitive, smart. She works in a tough sector but she’s still driven and enthusiastic despite challenges she faces. When I hang out with her - she makes me feel valued. Around her, I don’t feel that I am always chasing something. She makes me feel like a full complete human. I’m not partial - not a Warwick student instead of an Oxford student, I am just me. She values and cares about my interests and personal goals even if I’m not perfect: she’s very supportive of my software projects, indie film-making.

It’s not her job to make me feel “full”, that is up to me, and most of the time, I have the space to maintain myself, give myself time to affirm, boost myself, get myself back on track. But ironically, the extra space I had from my flatmate and girlfriend being away, was what trapped me into a spiral of pressure.

You remember earlier when I brought up Sakurai’s internal pressure idea. With my girlfriend and flatmate, I definitely do get to blow off some steam… I’ll yap about my projects - they might not always care or be interested, but they at least pretend they are (most of the time). I do reduce the internal pressure around them, but you know what - that’s OK. I don’t think Sakurai’s internal pressure proposal works for everyone. It definitely works for him, maybe it is related to Japanese work culture, but I find without input from those outside of my single minded “grind” - I get lost, overwhelmed, disparaged. I find it hard to let up the pressure, to refresh myself. My flatmate and girlfriend provide me times, without even trying, for me to space out and recuperate.

2 weeks of absence

The past two weeks weren’t about isolation, they were about absence. My girlfriend and flatmate’s absence was a presence. The words of my flatmate, that I could use the time to “lock in”, were kind of haunting. He was definitely right, and is still right, but the version of him that said that in my mind, is much fiercer than he actually is. When I was rejected from that Software Engineering role at the last stage - a large part of my shame was I felt I had let my girlfriend down so much, but she would never have felt that way.

The versions of them in my mind, when under pressure, are completely different from the versions in reality. Being alone, having time to yourself to work on yourself is not a bad thing. But being alone can heighten pressures from the world that you have internalised, because there is nobody else around to balance them out. Those pressures don’t have to be the enemy. Half of the battle is vocalising them, which is why I’m sharing them so publicly here.

This is the most personal thing I have shared publicly. My hope is that if I’m more open, my internal battles will sting a bit less.

Also! I did manage to write another blog in a week!! So that’s +2 points for my new website. Hopefully this wasn’t too moody or heavy, I will add another blog next week that will be cheerier. Bye bye :)