I got started on some corporate jobs recently and I soon found myself utterly consumed by it. Whenever I start work on any one thing - with nothing else to take my attention away - I devote myself fully to it.
Everything else falls away, as I see only one goal in front of me. I will fucking hammer at it until it is done. This actually has a physical effect on my body. High on adrenaline, or something, I find my core temperature raised. I feel hot all the time - and not an unhealthy, feverish hot. I stay up longer, and my mind does not stop spinning, painting many possibilities and simulating solutions for everything.
It's a sickness, an addiction. I have been here before. I know the feeling. It's like that one time I rode pillion on a small kapcai from Karak to Lembah Pantai, in the rain. Doing 140km/h on the highway, small droplets of water turn into stinging beads.
Soon, your hand feels numb, then, your face. Soon, you are just a nub of humanity facing erosion in the wind.
I am extremely intense.
Over the years, I have learned some degree of pacing, of patience, of managing expectations. But when I work - when I push - it is this intense energy that carries me forward. And I like it. I do hope everything works without a hitch.
Creative projects generate a different kind of energy. I become more spread out. It's chaos without any single point to focus on. This wide dispersal is about mass movements of energy - about people. It is about arranging many different pieces in a lifetime to prepare a collage.
Sometimes, I get lost in it and not much comes out of half-written novels or unfinished short stories. Movie scripts, though, I approach with a corporate mindset because there are others on the team waiting for the damned thing to be finished.
Both fields provide a different kind of rush. Corporate - an addict-like fire that burns everything raw. Creative - a more holistic, all-embracing neatness in a chaos of fractals.
I think I need to lay off the corporate for a while until everything is confirmed. My intensity might come in handy later on, but I also need to pace myself. What I need to do for this phase is almost done anyway. There are still a lot more to do, but I can wait for the others and other things to be there as well.
I might as well sleep for now, cause I don't know what I need to do tomorrow or next week. I'm just afraid the fire will be stomped out prematurely, which is still a possibility.
