Seeking Self: Procrastination

What causes you to procrastinate? How do you think you could avoid it?

I have had many theories about this in the past.

I have often believed that I need a certain level of pressure in order to get something done. If there's no impetus, nothing that's urgently requiring me to do something, then chances are excellent I won't do it. This, I reasoned, explained why I had such issues doing school work and writing uni assignments any earlier than a day or two before they were due. It wasn't necessarily that I wasn't working on them, because I still read textbooks, and looked at extra reading, went to tutorials and went to lectures, but the writing itself? No, that was something that didn't need to be done right now.

Of course, leaving things to the last minute caused no certain level of stress, but those rare times where I did try to get things done weeks earlier, when the assignment was given, I found that my brain just didn't work like it did in the last few days - When I knew it had to be done right now, or else, my brain seemed to suddenly focus. There was no such thing as writer's block, because if I was stuck somewhere, well, there was plenty of other places to start working on, and I had no choice but to write - If I didn't get it done, then I'd lose marks and that just would not do.

When I look back on that line of reasoning though, it seems very self serving - a clear attempt to justify the current patterns of behaviour. Even those times where it almost lead to ruin (a note to people: you can organise a masquerade ball in less than a week. If you have an organising genius on your side. Thus, I don't advise it), I'd still believe that this is just the way I work.

Knowing what I know of myself now, I think there is a certain level of truth to the above, but the issue is a somewhat broader one - I lack a lot of self-motivation, so I gain motivation from external sources, one of which happens to be deadlines. These days, I also gain motivation from my Daddy imposing schedules and requirements on me. My work keeps me motivated by having my work behaviour constantly monitored - I know that if I slack off on the job, people will notice.

What I really need to do is identify ways of building self-motivation, so that I'm motivated to do things because I want to do them, not because there's some external problem that's going to happen if I don't. Certainly, it would make things like organising events and appointments a whole lot easier if I could do them not at the last minute. I have experimented in the past with self-imposed deadlines and schedules, but the results never end up being terribly promising - since I know there's no penalty for failure, I fail with abandon.

For the moment, I rely pretty heavily on external motivation, to the point that I suspect Daddy may feel a little put upon by how much I seem to rely on him to regulate my behaviour and keep me on the straight and narrow. If I knew of a way of building internal motivation... well, okay, let's be honest. The only way I'm going to build self-motivation is if some external force shoves it into me. I don't think that's going to do in the long term.

What I bring to the Table.

This afternoon, me and Daddy were taking a trip out to see my parents, and we started talking about a topic I'd been musing about for the last few days, on and off - the curious imbalance between literature for leaders, and literature for followers, in particular how there's very little out there about how to be a good follower. It's an interesting question that I'm sure I'll come back to, maybe in a separate blog, but as we talked about what makes a good follower, we came to the topic of what that follower brings to the table - often a good follower has a large breadth on knowledge, and can bring many disparate knowledges to the table.

And so, I figured, what better time to write a post about what sort of things I can bring to my Daddy and other prospective players? What can I do for you? Among the skills I have:

• I can fix computers. I know how to troubleshoot both Hardware and Software problems, and get computers back to working state.
• I'm quite good at arithmetic, and enjoy working with numbers. I have no formal qualifications, but I'm capable of balancing books and doing quicksums in my head, even with fairly complex figures.
• I know a lot about banking, and money. I know a great deal about how the banking system works, and even have a AFSL Tier 2 Qualification, which means I can give advice about your banking.
• I have a fantastic phone manner. I can man phones for people and leave the caller feeling great at the end of the call. I can perform important calls for people, should they be unable to do so.
• I am proficient at simple massage. I can help relieve tension and help pain to an extent. I'm no expert, but I can do it, and I enjoy it!
• I can cook. My repetoire of by-heart recipes is minimal, but I am more than capable of following recipes, and I can usually make a good meal first time.
• I have a good knowledge of civics and general political matters, as well as general history. If you have a question about why the world works a certain way, I can usually give you an answer!

Seeking Self: Orientation

Go into depth of detail about your orientation, both sexual and D/s. Has it changed over the years? Do you feel it will change again?

So, let's start with the Short Version: I'm a bisexual switch, with a big bias towards submission, and a reasonable bias towards liking men.

Right, with that out of the way, let's expand that a bit more.

First, on the sexual orientation. For as long as I can remember having sexual feelings, I've had feelings for both men and women. My earliest attempts at acting on those feelings generally targeted women, because that's what society told me was the thing to do, but honestly, I've had desires for men for most of that time as well.

I do occasionally wonder as to whether I'm bisexual or gay, just considering the bias can be pretty strong at times. But I don't think it's a lack of desire for women at all that leads the bias. More likely the bias is due to the fact that I don't have a lot of sexual experience with women, and thus I'm always a bit anxious when the idea of girl-sex comes up.

I get a feeling that my sexual orientation has been pretty constant - the changing factor is how I act upon my orientation. I can't honestly forsee my sexuality changing in the foreseeable future - It's been such a constant force I don't think it'll change on it's own.

Second on my BDSM orientation. When I think back to even childhood fantasies, I remember wanting to be a pet, to be taken care of. I think I've always had a major preference for submission, and indeed, it wasn't until I was dating a person who preferred submission that my ability to be a Dom came out (although, frankly, I shudder at the sorts of things I did then, not knowing any better). I certainly feel a whole lot more comfortable being a submissive in a relationship, although that may be partly because I'm in a happy relationship right now.

I have dommed other people since being with Daddy, and played as a top, and I do feel there's a definite drive in me to be dominant on an occasional basis. I'm not sure if it's enough to get a full-time subby under me (so to speak), but I do think having a regular play-partner, at least, would be a good thing for my dommy side.

Again, I get the feeling that a lot of the comfort of being in a submissive role is because I know it well, I don't have to worry about failing in the role. Being a dominant, on the other hand, is a bit scarier. My skills are not nearly as sharp on that end. To anyone else, of course, this would be a clear cue to practice those skills, to get into as many dominant situations as possible and work on being a better dom. Instead, I just stick to what I know.

I do think that my BDSM orientation has changed a little, but not terribly - I think I've probably had switchy tendencies for most of my life, I've just mostly been trained into submissive roles by the world around me. I didn't really think much about being Dominant until I started engaging in BDSM, and only then did I realize that I had that potential. Will it change again? I think more likely I'll just get more comfortable in the dominant side of my orientation, and then I'll be much more comfortable switching on a more regular basis.

Seeking Self: Fear

What are you afraid of?

Let's go through them from smallest to biggest.

I am afraid of the 1950s. Okay, maybe fear is a little too strong for it. More correctly, the sort of perfect, 1950s sitcom atmosphere creeps me the hell out. It's one of the easiest ways to put me on edge in any media, especially because these days noone plays it straight. 1950s households always hold some terrible secret these days. So, yeah, 1950s kink really creeps me out a lot.

I'm afraid of bugs. Specifically, bugs that I have designated "dangerous bugs" - insects and arachnids that can bite, sting, or swarm me. It's probably not a stupid fear, but as things tend to go, I take it pretty far - I don't make distinction between harmless and harmful species of spiders and bees/wasps, etc.

I'm afraid more generally of Armageddon. It's not exactly a fear that I worry about a lot, but hey, you never said that these had to be fears you deal with everyday!

I'm afraid I'll never amount to much. That I'll end up one of those people who coulda been something, but never had the guts to do what they had to.

I'm afraid of losing the people I love. There was a while where when Daddy talked about suicidal thoughts to me, he then had to talk me down because I was convinced that that meant that he was going to kill himself and leave me alone. I'm a bit better with this one these days, but it's still a fear that's within me.

I'm also afraid of people not liking me. It's one of those particularly common fears that a lot of people seem to have, but in a lot of ways it's one of my more influential fears. On the one hand, it makes me work really hard to be as congenial as possible, to push myself to become a person who is capable of liking and being liked by a very large number of people. On the other hand, though, it leaves me a wreck when someone decides to attack me, it often makes me incapable of showing my emotions right there and then, etc. Decidedly a double-edged sword there.

And I think that's enough for tonight.

Seeking Self: Improvement

This blog, as might be shown by it's title, is supposed to be a way of me learning more about myself, since I have a lot of trouble with not knowing a great deal of myself. This is not just about my kinky side, but also my general self as well. As part of this, Daddy has given me a task to perform: Each week, I'm to complete a prompt of his, to talk about a certain part of myself, and to learn a bit more about myself. This is prompt number one:

How do you wish to better yourself, in the long term?

There are many things about myself that I wish to improve.

I want to become a person who isn't afraid of failure - someone who is willing to try things, even if I'm not entirely sure I'll succeed. The fear of failure paralyses me so much, I want to live a life where I will take risks and not care.

I want to have more emotions. I don't think I want control, per se - I think I already spend too much time controlling my emotions, and I think that control stops me from being able to experience those emotions. I want to be able to experience emotions in more than just a bodily context - I don't want to have to deduce what I'm feeling.

I want to be more present in the world. This one might be connected to the previous, but it's still important. I spent huge amounts of effort trying not to engage with the world, trying to protect myself from the bad things of the world. But I think those efforts are stopping me from enjoying the good things too. I don't get enthusiastic about things, I don't jump into fandoms anymore. I don't have any real obsessions anymore, nothing to engage me that doesn't involve work or my Daddy. I know why I put myself in the position I'm in (because I went through a few years of real suck, and so those behaviours that I always did got ramped up to try and get me back to functional), but I think that those behaviours are now holding me back. I want to be an exceptional person, in some way, but I know that being exceptional require focus, drive, passion. People who don't care about things don't become great people, because you have to push yourself to great heights.

I want to be sure of myself. With the addictions that I've dealt with (and still deal with), I don't think I really trust what I think anymore. I'm constantly vigilant, always questioning whether the things I want are actually what I want, or the addiction talking. I spent so long thinking my addictions were kinda normal, now I don't know what's normal and what's a step back to who I used to be. So far as I know, most people have at least a bedrock of beliefs about who they are, and what they want with their relationships and desires. Me? I have desires that I know are unhealthy and that I'm not allowed to accept. And I don't really have a lot of ideas on replacements for those unhealthy ideas. Daddy keeps telling me that the first step to new relationships is knowing what you're looking for, but I can't look for anything because I don't know that my intentions are ever right. When I keep interrogating my desires, they fall apart, but nothing comes up to replace them. Even the places in my life where I've clearly made good choices, I'm constantly doubting whether I'm really happy with those choices (see: lacking presence). About the only thing I'm certain about is Daddy, and even then, sometimes I feel doubts about my relationship. They don't last - I know I'm happy here. But they keep coming.

I think that's plenty of places for improvement for the moment.