Here I am again. I just connected my hands to my brain, for the enjoyment of everyone. Here is Travis, compulsive gambler and yet compulsive worker who created profitable systems but doesn't use them because he compulsively interferes with them.
Let's look it up, this adjective that describes me so well:
Compulsive Definition | Definition of Compulsive at Dictionary.com
Compulsion Definition | Definition of Compulsion at Dictionary.com
Then maybe it's not
compulsive, but rather
obsessive, because my hard work on systems is neither irrational nor contrary to my will. My trading is compulsive, but the adjective that applies to both is
obsessive.
Obsession Definition | Definition of Obsession at Dictionary.com
and, later:
Ok, so all this work to find out they are almost the same thing. I am two people, and they both obsess, and actually all my life I have been
obsessive about everything. That's why my girlfriend, right when she was trying to break up with me, gave me a book entitled "obsessive love". Obviously she had another personality disorder: 100% borderline. We fought, even physically, until she left. All other girlfriends were
dependent (another personality disorder), and left me as well - but probably I made them leave me, because they made me feel tired and burdened with responsibility. Then, once they left me, I swore eternal love to them (but sometimes they came back, and, all of a sudden, I wasn't interested anymore). The only ones who didn't leave me were the healthy ones: I broke up with them.
I spent my whole life focusing on one single obsession at a time. The girlfriends are my favorite obsessions, but when they aren't available or aren't available full time, I completely ignore them and find myself another object to obsess with. I've been surprised to see that some girlfriends wanted to keep in touch with me afterwards, and I said to them "no way, you're either with me or I never want to talk to you again". And again I was surprised to see that they got offended. To me being in touch with them if I can't have them completely it's pointless.
Here's more on my obsessing. Phone calls. I don't just stay for 20 minutes. I stay on the phone with the same person and every day for up to 3 hours (usually a woman). Sooner or later someone gets tired of this, and surprisingly, it's usually me, despite the fact that I do all the talking and calling. I get tired and tell the other person that she is addictive (yeah, pretty crazy) and that I need to take a break - because I easily get addicted to people who listen to me, but I can't afford to waste too much time on this addiction either. Smoking. I am a chain-smoker, but then I don't get addicted to it. I smoke 10 sigarettes in a row, then I throw away the rest and never smoke again for 2 months. Drinking. Well, that's the same for almost everyone, but basically I only drink in order to get drunk. I either get drunk or for me there's no point in drinking. Eating. I can skip dinner, or I can eat dinner twice. Swimming. I can't just swim moderately, just like for everything else. I have to go on for hours, usually at least 4, but sometimes 7 - always trying to beat some previous records in time or distance. I've never done it as a sport, or in competition, I am pretty much self-taught. Maybe I swim like ****. This is to say that I am not showing off my swimming. But I am saying it just to say that I obsessed about it as well. Movies. I had to watch movies all day long, at the library. Even in college, sometimes I failed a whole semester or two, and was spending my whole day in the AV room to watch movies, one after the other. Sometimes watching the same movie 30 or 40 times (days apart). Especially, I've watched over and over again Taxi Driver, The Godfather, Being There, One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Writing. Thousands of pages of hand-written journals. Reading. I spent a whole year, at around 15, finishing one book every 3 days. I read 100 books that year, and then I never read another full book in my life. Juggling. Not that I became a pro... or anything, but one night, I decided that, instead of studying for an exam, I would teach myself how to juggle 3 balls - without having any knowledge or having read any manuals about it. I stayed up all night, and after 8 hours, I could juggle non-stop. Then I kept doing it all summer. Then I lost interest in it. Web design. That's another thing, I taught myself, just like that. Obsessively. I decided that I would do it, and I've done it. Then it became my job for 2 years, but then I lost interest in it. Oh, and then foreign languages: when I was learning English, I would get up in the middle of the night to look up words in the dictionary...
All these things I learned seem a great accomplishment that I achieved thanks to my sickness - to my obsessing about things. After all I learned, I wonder whether "obsessive" shouldn't actually be meant as a compliment.
But then again I didn't get any social recognition for what I achieved. In the meanwhile I got poor grades. I don't like school at all, nor courses, nor manuals, because I don't like to be given the answers before I ask the questions. Even worse, in school they force you to memorize the answer, when you didn't even ask the question.
Also, always obsessing, being a workaholic, doesn't allow you to relax and to enjoy anything. I am not happy. I feel like I am just a machine, doomed to work all his life.
And even now, when I could rest and enjoy the fruits of my work, I can't enjoy them because, being so restless and needing to do something all the time, I can't allow myself to stay calm. I can't allow myself to be idle, because all my life I've seen it as a bad thing. And maybe, unconsciously, I can't accept to make money without working. I've done all this work, to make money without working, and now I can't accept it, because it's too easy and I am uncomfortable not being busy.
Or maybe none of this is true. Because I know how good I can be at convincing myself of things that are not true, just because I explain them so well. This is not math. The end result may sound good and be wrong. There's no way to tell if a reasonable reasoning leads to the right conclusion. So maybe none of this is true, and I will get used to doing nothing, making money, being relaxed and being happy.
But then again, I think of those lottery winners that win a lot of money and either waste all of it in a few years, or similar things. Look at the case of Jesse Livermore. He had qualities. He was good at picking the right trades. But no money management. He was looking to fail. He was definitely compulsive, and addicted to trading as well. When, in 1929, he had a 100 million dollars, or even sooner, why didn't he increasingly diversify? How did he manage to go bankrupt with 100 million dollars in cash?
These are just brainstorming thoughts written randomly... I don't mean to make any points. Just thinking and wondering. I may change my mind in a few minutes, as usual.
----
All my pushing myself so hard (
obsessively) and in every activity must have something to do with the fact that my father all my life told me I had to be the best, because I was better than everyone else, and that I couldn't settle for an average performance. He's done just the same for his own life. And he's never relaxed or enjoyed anything that he achieved, because that would've meant taking time and energy away from future achievement. In my family, we never celebrated any birthdays, because it's seen as a superficial thing. Only recently he's starting to ask me "how are you?", and it feels quite uncomfortable, even though he's making an effort to be nice. Oh, because I also have to mention that he's been mean to me my whole life, because I never achieved the perfection he expected of me. So I've gotten nothing but criticism from him, and I resent him very much. But he certainly taught me to appreciate precision. And now as a consequence all I see around myself is imprecision, stupidity, superficiality - everything he has taught me to despise.
Or whatever you enjoy doing; I've always thought that society's life was a bit boring, all saving money to work and then going home to a small plot of land to watch TV - Do something cool mate 
