I’m rarely (if ever) surprised by anybody having hidden depths that weren't immediately apparent. Most people my age seem pre-occupied with other things which don't really interest me, like they have their reasons for being now which are typically the mundane like families, mortgages, having their kitchens refitted, booking package holidays etc. and so that's what they talk about [...] they are where they are in life with the associated values and attitudes that brings, but like I say I just don't feel like they're my kind of people. Their concerns and interests are not mine, and my concerns and interests are not theirs.
I get your point and I think you've worded it nicely. While I don't have any concrete advice, there is one nuance I want to add. The way I see it is that everyone has like a pie chart of topics they want/can talk about. In practice it will always be dominated with the things going on in their life at that moment, but there also many topics that take up a sliver off the whole. While I wouldn't call those 'hidden depths', I'm confident that nearly everyone can suddenly start (or join) a conversation on a topic you didn't expect from them. In my experience this often happens on some off-beat moment and by pure coincidence.
Now those alone, are far from enough to become full on conversation partners on the regular. And mind you, that's only talking about the topics, not the conversation style or approach. The reason why they are still worthwhile to pursue is for one simple reason:
people know other people. The idea of 'six degrees of separation' is really true. I, myself, am really introverted by nature and I don't have that many social connections (was even way fewer years back). One thing I never understood is how some people, no matter the subject
"knew a guy". Even if I would spend all my time growing my "network", I wouldn't even get close to know enough people of all trades and expertises. But then I realized I was considering it in a linear fashion. By talking to one person and getting to know them (a bit), I would only know one new person. Instead, it's relatively easy to get to know that person's direct connections through them as well through conversation. That way your network grows exponentially!
I'm not saying you should focus on growing your network, as it takes time and energy to maintain it. But what you can do, is try and apply these insights whenever you do find yourself in a conversation about a topic you enjoy talking about. For example, let's say you're having a conversation about dolphins, and this guy that has
zero affinity with nature and related subjects, suddenly joins in with some truly fascinating facts. Could be because he just happen to watch a documentary about it if nothing better was on, but equally likely is that he knows someone that has an interest in, or works with, dolphins. In that case it doesn't hurt to ask things like
"How do you know all that stuff?" or if they refer to the person they got this information from to state
"You know, I'm really interested in dolphins, so I would like to talk/meet that friend of yours". And even if none of the before apply, you can say at the end of the conversation
"Well, it was really fun talking about dolphins. If you ever want to talk about those creatures again, or know someone who does, you know where to find me?". It can be a bit embarrassing and hard to do, but there's literally nothing to lose. Personally, it hasn't yielded a lot of result for me, but the times that it did, make it so that I always try to apply it.
That and work, and I have no interest in talking about work outside of work, I'd rather just pretend it didn't exist. Perhaps if I was doing something I found fulfilling and interesting I might feel differently, but I'm not and neither are my colleagues, so all they seem to want to do is bitch, which I find totally pointless.
Most likely your colleagues don't
want to talk about work either. But they're just full of it and need to release it somehow. Not sure if it's during lunch break, or at the end of the workday/shift, but most people tend to do this so that they can leave work behind before heading home, which in a way isn't so different from your stance. Trying to hold a conversation about something else at that point, is obviously not going to work. However, depending on the people and how long the conversation continues, it's almost a given that it will shift away from work to whatever topic (sports, hobbies, anything...). That would potentially be the moment to bring in the topic you'd like to discuss.
Personally I feel quite strongly about finding work that is fulfilling and interesting. That might be due to the fact that work has brought me a lot in terms of friends and contacts. But I know it's easier said then done. The real benefit is that you'll have ample opportunities to talk about something you at least find interesting. Mind you, it isn't a golden ticket, as I've come to learn that a lot of colleagues just consider it 'work' and don't really share the same passion for it I have.
I think the major issue I have there is how other people react to me - I don’t even blame them, I’m probably not the easiest person to read. In person I can be dry, frank and dark humoured to the point people probably don’t know when to take me seriously and when not to (that's probably true even online) which makes it very easy for me to upset people even unintentionally. That said, sometimes it probably is intentional (although not to the point of being pre-planned) which might be a bit cruel of me, but it’s almost like stress-testing to see how tough people are, whether they’ll challenge me back or whether they’ll just break. Usually it's the latter, which I then do feel genuinely bad about, but also a bit disappointed by.
To me, this sounds like the bigger issue. Communication is all about getting ideas across, and in conversation hopefully both ways. By being hard to read, or upsetting people (intentionally or not) the communication is almost by definition ineffective. Now I won't say there's something inherently wrong with it and searching for people that can read you well never hurts. But another way to look at this, is that you're actually putting the burden on the conversation partner. In a way, you might even be expecting the other to handle that burden. My only advice on this is what I mentioned before: reading up on conversation techniques and the psychology behind it.
I'll give an example of something that really helped me. It isn't applicable directly to your situation, but hopefully can give an idea of what can be done. One type of conversation I absolutely hated was talking about something I love with someone who is slow on the uptake in that particular subject. Having to dumb things down or explain things over and over again, really irritated me to no end. Now, it has to do with my arrogant nature and me sometimes being full of myself, but to me it would always reflect negatively on the one I was talking too. I'd never try to show it during the conversation, but I'd be surprised if went unnoticed. I did try to be more humble in general, but that only brings me so far.
What actually helped, was to approach these conversations with a different frame of mind. One thing I actually like doing is teaching and giving trainings, but that only applied when actually teaching. At some point I started thinking of these conversations as "mini-trainings". It didn't change the topic of the conversation, nor the goal. What it did change is that as soon as the other party didn't understand something, it was my fault. I still dumbed things down, not to move along, but to get the other party to truly understand. To ensure the other party understood everything, I would ask questions, which only made these conversations more interactive and dynamic. It was surprisingly effective and thanks to already giving trainings, actually not too hard to do, I just had to see that link and apply it.
So that's one of the reasons why I would strongly advice you, or anyone for that matter, to read up on these things. There are so many tips, tricks, methodologies and models that you can use to either hold conversations, analyse them, improve, etc... The vast majority of them I dislike, but I believe it varies from person to person what works for them. The only tricky part is, you have to actually try them out, just reading about them is sadly not enough...
I have all these ideas in my head for pictures that I wanna make reality like Evangelion related stuff and things... I don't wanna waste those ideas
I wonder if there are any other useful tips for improving one's art besides drawing every day and mind mapping (I can't manage the former and I actively despise mindmaps, never got on with them at all! To each their own but I hate them lol). Maybe I should try other methods of planning out projects
There are times that I can't seem to do one of my hobbies, no matter how much I want to. Trying to force myself to do it, never works out well. Giving it a rest is usually the best for me. Sometimes it takes a few weeks and sometimes even months, but my interest and energy for it always returns. So I would actually advice you try and not focus too much on drawing, even if that feels counter-intuitive.
To still have an outlet for your creative ideas, have you considered trying other art forms? Perhaps photography, sculpting, writing or anything really. Let's say you have an idea you'd want to draw, you could perhaps build it from Lego (or some other toy/material), then paint a background for it, position it together and make a photograph of it. The resulting photo can be Photoshopped or perhaps you can try replicating it by tracing it. While this might not directly improve your drawing skills, you will improve as an artist as a whole. You'll be working with shapes, composition and colours, which I believe can only help you when you feel like drawing again.
Honestly, life is just exhausting for me a lot of the time cuz of my health issues as well but I just get so aimlessly unfocused mentally and it sucks, like all I want is to be able to do all the creative stuff I wanna do, without it feeling like an impossible uphill battle to do anything much creative at all
I hope I'm not too direct, and I'm really not qualified to give any advice in this area, so please don't take what I'm about to advice you the wrong way. In fact, I'm only writing this, because I'm genuinely a bit concerned. I think you do need help. The reason I'm saying this, is because I recognize something of myself in the quoted sentence. Our situations are and were probably not comparable, and perhaps I'm just reading too much into this one sentence, but I'll share my experience a bit, so do with it what you want.
There was a time in my life where I really wanted to be able to do this one thing I (thought) I wanted to do. But slowly and steadily it became harder and harder for me to continue doing it. I was not productive in the slightest and everything seemed to cost more energy than I had. To combat this, I started cutting out other things, in the hope I could spend the time that came free on what I wanted to do. The end result was actually the opposite, it felt like I had less time and less energy, no matter how much I "gave up" or "sacrificed". Concentrating became hard, days felt shorter and shorter, but all I wished for was being able to do this one thing. In hindsight, it's clear as day what I did wrong, but it was simply impossible for me to see it at that time. By pure coincidence an outside factor made me realize, which allowed me to break the pattern. And guess what, to this day I'm still doing that one thing! But now it's just one of the things I do, and it actually
gives me energy.
One key factor in overcoming this was being able to word my feelings. I was never good at showing my feelings or confiding in others, but that also meant I was no good in putting my own feelings in words for myself. But like
@ayase also points out, you're brave enough to bare your soul. And reading your post, you seem quite good at understanding how you feel yourself. The thing where it does seem to go wrong, if you ask me, is that you take these feelings and let them run loose and fuel negative thoughts.
It would be better if you could take these feelings and give them a place, or find the underlying causes and work on those. Anyone can do that, but in my case the start was the hardest and did require external help.
I'm sorry if this was all uncalled for, and I'm no psychologist. I don't know your exact situation, nor is it any of my concern, but I just saw some similarities and hope this can help you. If you think I've overstepped my bounds, just tell me and I'll delete this entire section.
