A bit less realistic

I've learned a lot in the last few years, most of it coming so gradually I barely noticed. Maybe people like me grow up late, or maybe I just didn't have the incentive before.
Rather than mope around as usual, I'll instead write down some observations.
People are quite useless, but calling it out is useless too. So I should either become better than those I dislike, or shut up about it. Silence is the way to strength.
Most information that is available is half-true. Some mess with it for their own gain, but most is actually just simple stupidity. People say what they want and don't think about whether it might just be them.
In any case, here are my hopefully less stupid observations.
Success is difficult to learn even with help. The best way I've found so far is to just work hard.
Sure, working hard sucks and it's stupid. But so are you if you think you can do without.
The purpose of working hard is not to get shit done, not directly at least. Instead it teaches you the real size of your goals, so you can separate them from dreams.
The difference between a dream and a goal is that whether a dream comes true is a matter of luck and whether a goal comes true is about work. The more you work, the faster your goals come true.
Hence, if you know what success feels like. If you know the feeling of alpha or flow, you come to instinctively dislike the idea of "luck".
Ever worked hard for something and then had someone say you're "talented"? THAT is an insult. I didn't fucking get anything by "talent". If I could rely on such magic, I'd do it all the time, but no, I did the fucking work and got the rewards. Not luck, just work.
Tell me more about how some people are just talented, but you can't achieve anything. All I can hear are lies to cover up the fact that you're lazy. If you believe that talent matters much, that is.
Another reason to work hard is that it makes you optimize. Doing lots of boring stuff is boring, yes. That's the fucking point. If you go through it enough, you'll figure out how to make it less boring.
This is how I can in learn around 50 Japanese words per day every day. This is how I can read novels in a language that people give up before they put in even one fucking day.
Those who optimize forever before actually working are absolutely useless. I refuse to remain such a person.
When writing stories, or really with writing in general, the most important thing is to do it often. Whenever you have written on a particular day, you'll think about it for hours and improve by doing so. On the days you don't write, you don't improve.
Thus the goal for writing is first quantity, not quality. If you can keep going every single day, then the rest is just a matter of finding the right things to practice. The only hard part is practicing every day. Once you do that, success is so easy it's boring. Exactly how it should be.
Nerds like me need sunlight. Ofc we're not gonna get any. Vitamin D is the next best thing. What does it feel to not have enough? Drowsiness.
Ever since I started to take vitamin D, the difference between day and night increased a lot. It became harder to wake up, but once I did wake, I did it thoroughly. No more in-between bullshit. Either awake or not. This is what vitamin D does.
If you haven't done that, try vitamin D supplements for a week. Maybe it helps you. If literally nothing changes, you can quit and you'll know that you're fine in this regard.
Exercise isn't something I understand. Been doing it regularly for a week or two now. At first it sucked a lot. I was dead the next day.
But then I recovered and every next time it sucked less. I can do more push-ups than I can count on my fingers. I no longer want to lie down every time I run for a bit. I'm faster. I don't feel that tiny bit of exhaustion after lifting my heavy backpack anymore.
I guess those things count, but they're not much. Exercise doesn't feel like torture, but it still sucks. It's just that the rest of my life sucks a little less as a result.
A lot of my days are bad. Sometimes I feel like depression isn't something anyone can get over with. It's like alcoholism. You might feel good now, but you know what it's like to feel bad. If you let it, it'll come back and ruin your life. This is how I feel I am.
If I work too hard, I crash and feel bad.
If I work too little, I get tired all the times and lose motivation.
If I sleep too much, I can no longer seem to wake up.
If I sleep too little, my head stops working eventually.
There is no way out of this crap other than some kind of balance.
But with all this pessimism or realism (plot twist: they are the same thing) there is something more to learn. That is, cynicism isn't the entire truth. Yes, stuff sucks. Yes, people are useless and die someday soon. But if that's all you see, then you're missing out.
If you can, learn to have fun. Do something that you love. It might not be something you can do as your life's work, but every little bit counts. This kind of love is where passion comes from. Once you have passion, the rest is just a matter of wanting something enough and the work that results from it.
If I could teach a single thing to a past me, it would be this. It is fine to not be a realist.