Conclusions: Unlike Johnny Appleseed

[rinue]

The adage about reaping what you sow is usually a warning about starting trouble, but it has a flip side which is that I constantly put seeds into the ground in both a literal and metaphoric sense and then forget about them until a few years later when somebody is like "so, about this shrub you put here on purpose, is there anything we should know."

Past Romie had some goals and plans which are coming to fruition in ways that interrupt present day Romie's habits of drifting around the house palely. And probably they are better plans, based on ideas of life and growth and everything not being grindingly terrible forever. But I'm annoyed at being asked to shift back into that mindset? I am maladaptive now, thank you?

(It's actually the same freelancer stress point as always, where things have enough potential that people think I should work on them, but the compensation is not sufficient to sustain me, so it's work on top of the same "pay the bills" work, and all my leisure time turns into work time. Which I can do for a while if there's an endpoint where I make the full transition. I don't see that endpoint right now because of my current pessimism, so my mood winds up being "ugh another thing" instead of "yay this project I am invested in is moving forward.")

I read a bit about Johnny Appleseed to see if it was at all like Johnny Appleseed, and it seems that the real Johnny Appleseed was neither like the legendary Johnny Appleseed, nor like the "this is the real Johnny Appleseed" stories I have heard, and I am not much like any of these versions of Johnny Appleseed.

Comments

[sabotabby]

Still, even if the timing sucks (and doesn't it always) seeds sprouting is generally a good thing?

[rinue]

Oh, certainly, and I do say yes when these opportunities come up, on the assumption that I'll later be glad that they're done. (I have a lot of faith in my past self's long term plans, which tend to work and tend to unfold roughly on schedule.) Mainly, I'm noticing the disconnect right now between the level of success I'm having and how I feel. I don't necessarily expect those to ever be close together (my feelings and whether things are going well are rarely closely related, which on the plus side means it's also not strange for me to be cheerful in bad circumstances) but the gap at the moment is unusually large to the point where I'm having to wonder whether I'm in the beginnings of an actual depressive episode. Relatedly, I'm having to work harder than usual not to be a jerk to other people when they're being sweet to me. Still feeling my way out of it, finding the right cognitive path.

[rinue]

P.S. I think I accidentally (or on purpose?) cut off the ending of what I originally wrote, which was that I like all the versions of Johnny Appleseed. I like the myth version, and then the "no this is the real one" version that's still a myth, and I most of all like what I have found out about the real guy, who is the most relatable one. There was a digression about being annoyed at Michael Pollan's tendency to make stuff up ("what if x? I will not check, I will just propose what if?") and then market it as nonfiction.

[sovay]

There was a digression about being annoyed at Michael Pollan's tendency to make stuff up ("what if x? I will not check, I will just propose what if?") and then market it as nonfiction.

Now I'm wondering which non-myth version is the one I know.