u/Physical_Tax9659

Hey, it's me again, alone, depressed, friendless, loveless, miserable. I don't know where to start. At 31 years old, I feel more lost than ever. I used to have so many goals, so many dreams, so many big plans. I was really smart in high school, even in my first year of college. Valedictorian, aced the college admission exams, all my teachers were telling me how bright my future would be, my parents proud of me. Then everything went to shit. I don't know. I don't know why. It just happened. Depression took over my life. Sexual frustration, loneliness, all the bad things. I dropped out of college twice. I disappointed my parents. Now, at 31, they are old, starting to have health problems, while I'm unemployed, broke, and lonelier than ever. I don't know where to restart. Life just sucks, and sometimes I wish I wouldn't wake up one day.

I lost a good friend too. Our friendship was brief. I lost her. She drifted away from my life because I didn't know how to maintain a friendship. She was my only friend in these past two years. She was the light in my darkness. But I had to ruin it, only because I couldn't control my jealousy.

Now I am wondering what to do. I have insanely big dreams, maybe illusions of grandeur. I just bought a guitar, finally, even if I have to eat only bread and water for the next two weeks. I thought I could become a musician someday. I don't know, maybe the next Alex Turner or the next Chris Martin. But I can't even focus on learning. My mind is always wandering, remembering how good it was 10-20 years ago, and how bad post-pandemic life feels. My thoughts are still on this girl, how much I miss her.

My other fantasy dreams are to become a writer, a novelist, or a screenwriter, but aren't they even more difficult than becoming a musician? But wouldn't it be cool to become the next Stephen King or the next Charlie Kaufman?

You guys may ask about my college degree. Well, it turns out it's not worth it. A worthless STEM degree from a public Ivy that is not getting me a job at all. I wanted to become a scientist at some point -the next Francis Crick, the next Frederick Sanger- but here I am, unemployed and rejected from the few job interviews that I can get after more than 500 applications. My high IQ of 138 is for nothing, I guess.

In summary, I would give half of the rest of my life just to go back to 2005 and start everything over. Or better, not that, but something more realistic: just to have this girl back in my life, even if just as friends. If there is a God, I promise this time I'll be the most perfect man ever if either of those wishes come true.

So, dear fellow redditors, should I stick to my big dreams of becoming an artist? If so, how with all this depression that, anytime it seems to go away, comes back stronger than before?

I've started to learn the guitar but it seems to hard and it will probably take me months or even years to say I can play the guitar. My first idea was to transition to electric guitar later and make pop rock and indie rock. Sort of like Arctic Monkeys, Kings of Leon, Coldplay, but what if I just stick to synthpop and electropop and don't learn any instruments at all?

I'm 30 and I'm just impatient. My time is running out. Maybe if I was 18, I'd be okay with learning a guitar and other instruments. But I'm 30, and the idea is to have demos ready by the end of this year and have a label sign me.

Maybe my focus now should be buy a good DAW, a good computer, a MIDI keyboard, and that's it? Or should I be patient and learn how to play the guitar?

Also my depression is slowing me down. A recent heartbreak that I can't get over yet. My life has been shit since I remember, full of mistakes and disappointments, so music is the only golden ticket to get out my misery. Broke, lonely, loveless, friendless. I have to make it. It's my last chance.

I don't want my post to sound mental health related, but this is just to give some context of why my path to become a musician is very important for me. And the last thing I want to do is to waste my time learning the guitar when probably there are other ways, other shortcuts.

Whenever I open a self-learning platform and want to follow the lessons, my mind can't get away from thinking about my own life and all the mistakes that I made. I can't stop thinking about how I blew my last opportunity to have a girl, even if the relationship with her was totally platonic. Now I feel like I wasted my money in buying a new guitar thinking I could become the next Alex Turner or the next James Blunt. I am broke, alone, depressed, and nobody cares about me. I was too stupid in thinking that music could be the only way out of this nightmare.

Anyways, should I return my guitar and feel embarrassed while doing that in front of the salespeople in the store? Or what I should rather do?

Guys, I'm considering buying a new laptop for my artistic endeavors, and I want to choose the right one this time. My current laptop is a piece of crap, old HP from 2019, and it's always making noise and overheats. I want to buy a new laptop, and transition from Windows to Apple. I don't like how low quality Windows has become after Bill Gates is not the CEO anymore, plus their terrible customer service.

I see there are two types of MacBooks: Air and Pro. I don't have much money to buy a Pro, but could make an effort to buy the Air one. Would that be enough though? M5, 512 GB SSD, 24 GB RAM.

I plan to have Ableton and Logic Pro, and will also do video editing for YouTube and podcasting. Plus certain software for tech such as R Studio, Python, and MATLAB.

I'll be using actual instruments as well, to connect with an audio interface.

Do you think the MacBook Air should handle all that?