
Discovering My True Passions:
Embracing the Joy of Solitude and Simple Pleasures
In Sister Act 2, Whoopi Goldberg told a student that if she woke up every morning and all she could think about was singing, then she was meant to be a singer. When I wake up, I always think – do I need to get up, or can I go back to sleep? Does this mean I was meant to be a sleeper? I’m not sure how this would work. I suffer from occasional onset insomnia, and if I sleep too long, I get a migraine. I might have to rethink this advice.
Have you ever been asked, “What do you like to do?” or “What are your passions?” Probably most of you can easily list some things. When I get asked that, I’m never exactly sure what to say. I mean, I like to read and watch movies/TV, but I’m sure that’s not really what they’re fishing for. I don’t like sports. I’m a complete introvert (meaning I get my energy from being alone rather than around others), so doing things that seem to align with answering this question don’t work for me. I like being alone. I understand seeing and connecting with people is important, and I do that. But when given a choice of what I want to do, I usually just want to stay home, unbothered, and do whatever strikes me in the moment.
When I answer the question with reading or watching movies/TV, I can see the person waiting for me to continue because those aren’t quite acceptable answers. I come off as either very boring or so shy that I don’t want to open up to them. Well, I’m certainly not going to lie to them and say I go waterskiing every other weekend or something.
The last few months, I’ve been dealing with some health issues and reevaluating things. [I’m okay, still healing. But let me just say, this was my first time navigating the U.S. healthcare system, and I don’t know how people do it regularly because it truly sucks to deal with. Granted, I met some really nice physicians. Some not-so-great ones. But getting appointments, billing, etc., that is horrible. Anyway, back to the matter at hand.] I posed the question to myself again about what I like to do. I’d like to step away from the TV or computer. Find a healthy passion… but what?
Growing up, my main interests were art and writing. I preferred drawing (on paper or, more recently, digitally), but I’ve fallen out of it, and I just cannot get myself back into it. I took an art class in my freshman year of high school. I learned a lot, but it was a legitimate art class, not something where you just make things like in elementary school. It started to feel like a job, and that turned me off. Looking back, I kind of wish I had tried to stick that out a little bit, but obviously, that didn’t happen. I think it could have really helped my skills.
In the third grade, my art teacher was impressed by my drawing (as I was drawing in perspective, unlike my classmates). He wanted me to go down to Florida and work with Disney on this summer youth thing they had. I ended up not going because I think I was a bit scared. Another moment where I wonder what would have happened if I went.
Is going back to drawing something I want to do? I don’t know. I’m not feeling overly enthused about it at the moment. I won’t rule it out…
Writing
Growing up, I had always loved things like Disney princesses and everything that fit that category. Even at a young age, I would always pretend to be a princess, either in one of those kinds of stories or just my made-up world. If I discovered a new movie or show that I liked, I would tweak an existing “princess” story in my head to accommodate those new characters or storylines. Many times, I would start (and hardly ever finish) writing a story. Even to this day, I still do that. It’s like once my mind completes the story (which could take days to weeks), I move on to another alteration or a whole new story. Hence, the story remains undone, even though sometimes I know what happens in my mind. My imagination goes way too fast for my typing skills, and just writing an outline doesn’t inspire me later to actually finish it.
About two or three years ago, I got this elaborate story idea that involved this made-up world within our own, but not secretive like Hogwarts. It was just a place that no one went to and was just by itself. I started to create a map and outline. I wrote out some dialogue (because my characters don’t slow down for me to type everything—rude, I know). And yet, I hardly wrote the story, but I had replayed many scenes in my head.
Fast forward to the present, at work, we have a running joke about robots, the “This is fine” meme, and such other crazy things. Believe me, you don’t want to even try to understand our insane conversations, but it makes for a fun day when we’re in the office together. Anyway, my one coworker was like, “I found it! I found our robot…but he doesn’t have a body.” The robot? Grok. Yep, Grok. (We made Grok male. Because why not? We’re sticking with it.) She had played around with it the night before with her friends. I had posed a question – how many teeth does a hippo have? (36 if you didn’t know.) But then, I was like – I got it. I asked Grok to make a poem of the “This is Fine” meme. And he excelled beautifully, needing no other prompt beyond that.
That got me thinking. I had a list of prompts for writing. I picked one site and asked Grok to make a short story with that prompt. This was cool. This gave me my idea. What if I took these Grok stories and remade them into side characters (mentioned or unmentioned) from my unwritten story? Then I could collect them all and make a blog for people to read. I would have my story and Grok’s version listed. But all the while, I would keep worldbuilding on my story. Making it so intricately involved that I might be inspired to even write out the original story that replayed in my head from time to time. This could work.
Well, being the ISFJ that I am, I tested the waters a little bit. I picked four different genres of prompts and had Grok make the stories. Some were easier to convert over to my story world – like the first one. But others were a bit trickier. I found it fun. And actually, something I enjoyed doing.
Considering AI-generated content currently lacks copyright protection, I think I should be okay posting the original with my version of the story. I figured I could supplement some facts in other posts to help people understand the world. I could make my maps nicer to be posted…. Did I do it? Did I find something I was passionate about? Could I make this work—not just a passing fad?
Well, the last question is one I’ll find out later. But I hadn’t had such a spark like this in a while.
What do you like to do? I like to take AI-generated stories and edit them into my own writing world, creating a plethora of short stories for people to enjoy.
That might be a better conversation starter….
Image by ChatGPT
Leave a Reply