Love of writing is limited

Now that I have ranted in preceding posts about my love of writing, why I write, and comparing writing to other actions, so now, of course, in my typical fashion, I have to be completely confusing and talk about/argue for the COMPLETE opposite “on the other hand.”

Since coming to university, I have had so many opportunities to write for different clubs and organizations, but I never felt any inclination towards doing that.

Before I give examples, it’s actually very analogous to how I felt about the “ocf” club before coming to university. Before it started, I started looking at the 1000+ clubs online. I saw that there was an “Orthodox Christian Fellowship”- basically the Orthodox club on campus. It seemed a small community, and I just assumed it was. I thought it was cute, but I had no intention, or interest in joining. Why? Maybe because I act in my own bubble, in my own little world, without even wanting or intending to. Yes I’m Orthodox, I go to church on Sundays, and have since my days as an infant. Coming to university, my intention was never to stop doing that. I wanted to keep doing that all the same, but I felt no need to join a club for it. I mean, why join a club just to go to church? All you need to do is just go to the church. I was like, it’s kind of weird that there even is a club, because to me it just seemed like all you need to do is just go to church, whatever be a good person, why is there a club, what’s that about? What do they even do? Because I assumed that what they do is not just go to church, but that they probably do other stuff at their meetings or whatever, and I didn’t see how that was church or Orthodoxy related at all, therefore, pretty pointless? Well as it turns out I was kind-of right, because their meetings are barely ever church services, and weirdly enough, some of the people that go to the meetings, don’t go to the “main” meeting you could say- the Divine Liturgy.

So they’re basically just a friend group, having fun, doing fun things, almost all of the time. Now I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, a community can be a good thing, and for an event such as church and Orthodoxy I guess, maybe you would want to feel connected- to others like you.

So yeah, I repeat, I had no intention/interest in joining, but it’s almost like they seeked me out…it just happened. I saw the table at the Student Organization Fair, it was probably a calming sight to see Orthodox icons among the chaos, and I stopped by. Told them I grew up Orthodox, and they wanted me to join. I found out where the church was, for services, my task was accomplished. I didn’t want to join, but didn’t want to be mean either, because I’m a people-pleaser, and especially how bad it would look for this club after I had just that I literally grew up Orthodox, so I scanned the QR-code for the GroupMe or whatever. And now I was receiving their messages. Actually I’m not sure if I scanned it then, or later, but I definitely wasn’t an active member for at least a while. Like not someone who was prominent, who was known, within the group. For quite a bit.

But, by doing the thing that I had said was the only thing I really wanted to do, go to church, I kept running into the same people, and eventually, essentially I basically joined the prominent main group “organically” and got pressured to go to their meetings (lol). Which I actually didn’t do in the first semester probably for the same reasons of not really wanting to. But what’s interesting is that this became a huge friend group. And in second semester, when I actually had an interest in going to the meetings, because I was already invested in the people, I no longer could, because in short, I had challenged myself too much (Read: “Challenge myself” lol).

Isn’t it funny, how sometimes, exactly what you don’t want, or don’t think you need, happens, anyway?

And then, my experience with ocf, is similar to my experience with writing in clubs. They would I guess…want me…but I didn’t want them.

For example, there’s a club (I actually joined, because similarly, felt bad) that’s for writing fiction. Sure that’s what I did with the novels. And my blog is not exactly fiction…but it’s more credential and ethos, and I accidentally blurted out about the blog and novels (which I don’t usually do, I don’t necessarily want people to know these things about me, or anything at all, really) I then felt like I needed to bang my head against a wall for saying that and felt bad and embarrassed like “darn!” but it just slipped out. But I don’t really have an interest is sharing that work and reading others. Not that I can’t take or don’t want to take critique, that would actually probably be useful, but it’s everything else about the club, the essence of it, and what it is. Or writing short stories just for a club. My interests is writing is just nowadays the blog…besides maybe editing the third novel (and obviously I have had the other two that I have written and edited, with one of them self-published in two different places). Though how useful is critique really, if I have written, edited a ton, and one is published while the other is finished? I guess for the second and third, since they aren’t actually published…

Another club is some engineering journal. They want writers, or photographers, and other positions too I think. I mention these too because they are also my interests. But like with writing, my photography interests are limited too. Maybe I’m just picky about everything? I have a different post about photography, and how I only like photography for nature, not people.

Like taking pictures of what, engineering projects? Boring. Writing about the engineering? Also boring, not what I like to write about. Feels like one of those “boring” assigned essays.

Another club, that reminded me of just a hobby, was some kind of fashion journal. Similarly I think they wanted writers, and maybe other positions. Fashion is fun, sure to know about, think about, look at. But write about? And for all of these, to take time out of (well, time that I don’t have, basically) just to write about? No, I take time to write for my blog, and that’s pretty much all these days. Maybe just on my own too, for some things.