Like a wick, or a match...

I am burning up and burning out.

That's what I had as my status message when I started writing this. I started writing this about three weeks ago (Tumblr has this entry tagged as started on 27 July), but I've been so burned out—-sleeping 14 or 16 hours a day, and staring into space the other 8 or 10—that I haven't gotten around to finishing it until now.

This happens to me a few times every year. Sometimes a couple of times a year, early and late in—-sometimes three or four times a year. Each time, I get sucked into a void, an extreme malady of apathy. My finances go out of control (I'm three months behind on house payments), productivity vanishes to near nothing, books are left unread, and I barely even have any energy to eat.

I hardly even turned on any of my computers most weekends, when I was at my lowest—if you know me at all, that would give you a hint as to how low I've sunk. It's gotten to the point that one of my closest friends have remarked on my not being constantly online, not just once, but twice (thrice now!).

In this day and age of of high technology, extreme competition, fast-paced everything and omnipresent connectivity, it's easy to dismiss these bouts of lethargy as just plain old laziness. Except it's not, and the ones most painfully of just how much it's not are the ones least likely to muster the energy to do so.

This is not being bored with what I do, although, yes, I am bored with what I'm doing. But, then again, I'm always bored with what I'm doing. It's a feeling of suffocation, I suppose. A fear of becoming too boxed in. Claustrophobes will have an idea of what I'm talking about, except there's a lot less sweating bullets and muffled screams.

Burnout for me can be triggered by feelings of insecurity that grow through several weeks. It starts off as a nagging feeling, a sort of small voice wondering, "What the hell am I doing here? Is this what I want to do for the rest of my life?" Small enough that it's easy to ignore. But then, other things start to happen, more doubts creep in. Thoughts like, "Am I making the best possible use of my skills and energy?" Of course, the answer is inevitably 'no'—if you answer 'yes' when you ask yourself this question, you're either incredibly smug, or are incredibly deluded (or, sucks to be you, you're quite the talent-less fuck your mother always secretly feared you'd turn out to be).

When I'm burned out, I'm a lot more confrontational than I usually am (see my posts between today and 27 July), picking fights left and right, regardless of whether or not I can actually win any of them. It doesn't matter if the fight exists only in my head, or if it's an actual physical fight, either. It's as if only some parts of me are burned out, and that whatever nervous energy I've built up is desperately—and succeeding in—looking for alternative ways to expend itself. As if my body's demanding that, when I'm burned out, I be completely burned out.

Figuring out the cause

My burnouts don't all stem from a single cause or event, of course—that's just being emo... or psychotic—but it seems it's sufficient to say that they start as not being content with something (sometimes everything), along with a general feeling of impotency (by which, I mean powerlessness, you pervert).

I guess it's accurate to say that all the frustration at not being able to change things I can't possibly change (without, you know, being an actual god—or, at least, really, really rich) build up over time. This then combines with the frustration of not wanting to change things I know I should change, for whatever reason (mostly fear). Either I have a very low tolerance for this kind of internal shit, or (and if you know me at all, you'd know this is more likely) I just tend to accrue quite the boatload of frustrations.

Perhaps I should dramatically cut the list of things I care about. Or dramatically lessen the amount of care I put into whatever I choose to care about. Either way, it's going to involve quite a bit of drama, and I'm not one to shy away from that.

Getting it out of my system

On my lowest days, I played WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2010 on my Wii. And I played it a lot. Mostly the match types that allows me to beat the living shit out my opponent. I would then turn off KO, so I can, e.g. throw the Undertaker from the top of the cell until I get bored of climbing back up, or perform my finisher for the nth time, without the overly zealous referee stopping the match, seemingly fearful for the life of a game character.

At no point was I shouting obscenities at the screen while literally foaming in the mouth. I didn't feel angry, nor was I consciously wishing that I beating the hell out of someone in particular. If anything, someone watching me would say that I was bored like hell, if not for the fact that I'd let matches run for up to an hour (when I could just pin or make my opponent tap out five minutes in).

I suppose it would've been worrying to the people around me, but—and you have to agree—at least it wasn't as destructive as, say, straight-up going postal. Or getting into my car and then driving off a cliff. Good thing I don't drink, although I'd like to think I'd have managed to refrain from going on a legendary bender (wouldn't want my son to see his old man passed out on the floor, reeking of alcohol).

But, honestly, I was just bored and lazy as hell. I didn't want to do anything, or be involved in any armchair political discussions, or even read my news feeds. I just wanted to lie down on the couch and beat up wrestlers.

Earlier in my career, I'd have started one or two new projects. Usually, something that's quite a departure from whatever it was I was doing at the time. When I was with a content provider for telecoms, I did Web-related projects. When I was with a payment processor, I started an alternative Windows shell. Although, when I was with an ads-related company, I mostly just rewrote the crap that others on my team put out (that's because, for that particular burnout, their crap was the main cause: it depressed the hell out of me).

Wrapping it up

I'm not here to sell you snake oil, to claim that I have methods that would make burnout a thing of the past for every tech worker in any field. If anything, my burnouts are taking longer and longer to... well, burn out.

I don't claim to understand how my burnouts are started, or what really happens to me when one is underway. I'd like to apologize to everyone who's ever been a casualty in one of them, but, really, what's the point? It's going to happen again, anyway—I have no control over it, and the ones I really should apologize to are the ones who're going to be affected the most the next time, anyway.

This post was started because I thought it would help me get through the current burnout (I'm at the tail end of this one, but it's not done with me, yet). It didn't. It just added one more draft. I decided to finish it now, because, I've slowly been regaining whatever productivity I had, and I thought I'd be better served by putting the rest that's about to come on stuff that makes me money. You see, I'm trying to build up my Fuck You Money; the amount of money I think I'll need to be able to flip the world the finger and do what I want for a change for a significant amount of time.

Right now, that's school. Afterwards, who knows?

I'll probably keep going through these phases until the day I die. In fact, I think this is eventually what would lead me to my grave: One Big Final Burnout. But what else is there but for me to keep my chin up and try and soldier on?

Or, as Iron Maiden put it:

No point asking what's the game / No point asking who's to blame

'Cause if you're gonna die, die with your boots on.