I never get good.

I am absolutely dreadful at literally everything. I never get better. I can't build any self esteem because I'm too stupid to build myself as a person. I can't setgoals because even if I achieve them by some divine intervention level miracle of the almighty I'm still a failure. Even if I try and try and try all I do is fail and fail and fail. I can train for months at something and stil I suck at it. It's not fair, I was told if I put effort in I'd get rewarded, but I don't. No matter what I do I'm still just as much of stupid incompotent halfwit who falls flat on his face. Even when I put the work in and pour my heart into something its never enough, I'm never enough to achieve anything. How do you just keep trying and making new goals when you just keep failing even when you actually try. It feels like setting any goal, regardless of its minuteness, is like trying to knock the sun out of the sky with rocks, it's a futile effort that ultimately has no pay off.

Please give a few examples.

Attempting to learn Spanish: I never became compotent at the language even after three years of trying. I barely scraped out with a D and just a few short months later when I entered college I was tested and placed in Spanish 101. I didn't get any better.
Attempting to learn the piano: one year, once a week plus home practice and still my fingers could not get the notes right. At my final recital I played a horribly butchered version of my rather simple song (got nervous and went too fast for a more mid tempo song, finished the two and a half minutes of it in one minute fifty seconds) and currently I'd have to start all over again even after a year of training.
Writing: I write a lot in my spare time, and after TEN YEARS of near continuous writing I've still yet to produce a single piece of quality material. My sentences are still pockmarked with grammatical and spelling mistakes even after revision, my characters are still cliché and tonally schizophrenic messes, I blather on going into pointless detail that doesn't contribute to the overall work or is such a protracted talking heads sequence that the overall action takes a back seat for over a page. I still can't write proficiently after ten years of doing it as a primary hobby and it infuriates me perhaps more than any of my other grievances.
Weight lifting: I've been lifting weights for a year, and I have been stuck at the same weight limit for months, unable to lift any more in any exercise without risking injury. I'm still weak, and even after all this time I'm still equally as weak.
Games: Board, video, sport, even ones I've played for years on end I still get my *** handed to me on a silver platter. I can't do it, even when I put my all in I am still bested by people with inherent talent beyond mine, I can't win consistently.

I think you need to discuss this with a professional helper (a therapist). Your expectations are out of line. Most people can't win consistently. Languages and music do require talent and innate abilities - the idea that repetition and continuously applied effort would give you mastery is a mirage. Say, I am talented with languages and if I spend three years learning Spanish, I would have the vocabulary of a native speaker, but I do not have a musical ear and have fairly poor coordination, so three years of studying piano did not teach me anything. But I know these things about myself - that I have great abilities with non-tonal languages and no ability with music or tonal languages. With weights, it is about the structure of your muscles - if I try lifting weights, I also would remain weak. But I am flexible. So not strong, but flexible, and I know it about myself. And fast, but not strong.

So it is unclear why you continue persevering in wrong pursuits instead of finding what you are strong in.

Your writing is extremely vivid, however, and the most striking part of the whole thread is that you think of yourself as a cliche and of your writing as producing nothing but cliched characters. You are a highly unusual person - as far from a cliche as it gets. And your writing is not cliched. In this thread you have not depicted a fictional character, but still, I can bet that your characters are not cliched.

Once again, this is so complex that a professional would need to get involved. As I see it, you need to stop being involved in activities that you do not do well, recognize that you have writing abilities and focus on how to hone the writing skills to produce work that you'd feel proud of. Maybe writing seminars or meetups where you'd get critiques from other writers might help or possibly a college class on writing. Plus, you report having difficulties organizing your writing, but you can get help with this very typical concern of amateur writers. Your usage of idioms is stellar and with a little help with executive functions (planning, organizing, tracking progress, and the like) you have nothing to prevent you from publishing quality work.

You're good at writing. You're good at trying different things. You're good at having really, really high standards for success. Are you good at knowing what you enjoy doing? It's hard for me to know the difference between the accomplishments that I think I should have and the accomplishments that come just from spending time doing the the things I enjoy.

It took a while to figure out what I enjoy doing. I bet you like writing. You do it well and with intensity. I bet you have good ideas that other people would be interested in reading. If you get tired of feeling bad about yourself, a therapist would probably help you learn how to change things. I hope you don't get discouraged about writing. It would be a shame for people to not get the opportunity to read what you have to say. In my opinion, you wrote a successful post which motivated me to comment and consider my own situation. Thanks

Some people just enjoy the process and know they don't have to get good in everything... You're really good in trying things out, yeah!
Piano and languages can be hard, so kudos for even trying!

I'm not really good at sports or games either, but I've enjoyed walking or some slow running... Have you tried to find some things you just enjoy, regardless of the 'outcome'?

I too think you have a way with your writing, though I'm also frustrated with my own writing and organizing it (a book or a few)... It can be hard... I too have cliches in my book/s but I intentionally put them there to have fun with them, if that makes sense? Like a sort of parody of other books/the genre... So maybe you can play around with your cliches as well?
What genre/s have you been trying to write? Some books are full of cliches but they are still good books...

Do you have a job or do you study? In that case you already have a lot. What about relationships? Do you have friends that like you for who you are, a significant other?
I've been really good at languages and in school, but it doesn't seem to help me much these days, profesionally or otherwise... I see people who had much less success in school being more successful professionally, having marriages and families... Things to consider...

I don't have good ideas. Actually I retract that statement, that's not accurate. I have plenty of good ideas, but none of them are MY good ideas. My head is dense with great thoughts but they are all stolen from people who actually know how to do things. I'm just a leech, that's a suitable term for me, a useless blood draining parasite. Trying to find "something I'm good at" is not very helpful to me at the moment, because I keep trying and I keep finding the same result, namely "not this either". I have tried a bunch of stuff and at this point I'm on the verge of just throwing in the towel and contenting myself with "nothing", hence why I'm here. I don't think a therapist is proper for me as I don't think "talentless" is a mental health condition that he/she could assist me with. As far as college writing goes I'm not taking a writing class at the moment because I got an 8/9 on the AP writing test and 650/690 on the writing SAT, getting me enough credits to skip it all together. In more specific response to "smilehere" no I don't have friends who understand me, I don't have friends. I have another thread in General about that but the abridged version is that I used to have a lot of friends in highschool who hung out with me because of............. something I suppose. Now in college I have no friends and I don't know how to make them. I have no significant other because I have nothing to offer as a person at the moment. I don't enjoy activities regardless of their outcome because that seems pointless to me, why bother when the result ultimately is nothing.

The point of going to see a therapist - which many people have suggested - is not in "treating" your being "talentless" as a mental health condition, but in helping you get grounded and in touch with reality. You write extremely well - the last post shows it. You also report very high verbal scores, consistent with the writing you have demonstrated on this thread. I do not know about piano and other pursuits in which you report having failed - I cannot hear you play, and, being talentless and without a musical ear myself, I would not be able to judge your performance anyway. But with writing you clearly have it in you, and, given that you report high verbal scores, the issue with your writing seems to be two-fold: lack of solid executive skills and paradoxically low self-esteem. A therapist can help with the latter. For the former, since you are in college and have access to free resources, I would first contact the learning resource center and see if they have anybody who could help you with executive functioning.

Also in the last sentence of your last post you endorsed some degree of depression, which unlike being talentless is a mental health condition.

I would suggest printing out this thread and taking it to the school's counseling office.

Those test scores are much like the early model M16-A1 rifle. In a simulated and controlled environment the results appear promising, it is only in the field that the major flaws show through. Regardless I suppose I'll see what sort of clubs or counselors are available at my college, though I make no promises on success. After all I'm just another cliché to them and myself.
My final sentences were poorly worded and I believe it caused confusion. I was saying that I don't see the point in activities without clearly defined success/failure conditions as what is the point in doing something if there is no reward. I see the value in activities generally, even ones where the success is arbitrary (for example building a model plane. The end goal is meaningless but there is a clear end point and success, so it has intrinsic value to me). Just clarifying my admittedly poor description.

Great! Look into creative expression therapy or process painting workshops or art therapy in general. For that you would likely need to branch off - on campus there might not be suitable resources - but it is well worth it and group art therapy is not expensive. This may be just what the dr ordered for you and even more important than executive functioning improvement, also you can look into both types of resources in parallel.

I'd say that you suffer from being too cerebral for your own good; any experiential therapy, and especially creative expression and process- (rather than goal-) -oriented activities should be just what you need.

Mindlessly wandering on campus shooting pictures and then posting them online with captions you write yourself is another idea.

Oy, I'm beginning to feel a bit apprehensive of this. I don't paint, or draw any more. I always end up either with crude outlines on a mostly barren canvas or with ****. My drawings are like those of a one eyed far sighted child who lost his dominant hand, and it causes me to sit there painstakingly redoing my reference lines until they are perfect (they never are) or press on and end up with ****. I took photography for a year in high school but I don't like taking pictures for the same reason I brought up, it has no objective and thus no meaning. Plus I'll look like a tool.

I do not think that you read my post carefully. I made a clear distinction between process- and goal-oriented activities.

You really need a therapist, and please take this thread to him or her. There is a lot going on inside your head and somebody needs to help you figure things out. I would say that you urgently need a therapist.

I am sorry, I legitimately do not understand why. Whenever you have the opportunity would you kindly explain why this response warrants theraputic treatment? Thank you for your time, with full sincerity I appreciate your commitment to my thread.
As well I should speak in fewer extremes as it may exacerbate issues. I enjoy activities that are goal-less that are also passive, such as listening to music or watching movies, I just do not enjoy most active activities that lack a point. I am unsure if that will alleviate some of your concern.

You are making the distinction between producing art and appreciating art (or music).

I was making the distinction between making art with a goal in mind or simply immersing yourself in the process of creative expression. Both my examples are active/producing.

Let me know if this clarifies a bit.

Okay, I've looked up the difference between goal and process oriented activities... and I'm afraid I don't "get" it. If I am building a house I would say it's more important to achieve the goal (get a safe, sturdy, structurally compotent house built that pleases the occupant) than to creatively construct and judge the product based on my own satisfaction instead of the satisfaction of the recipient. If I am drawing without the intet to make art then why am I drawing? When I used to draw I liked making comics, and while I never intended for them to be published or anything like that (I was thirteen, that goal would be quite a ways out of my reach) I still drew with the intent of making a comic that was competent with action, a coherent story,an overarching message, and more generally up to my expectations. Why would I draw to draw? That seems pointless. Again I can get appreciating art, even though that accomplishes nothing other than understanding of a work, but why CREATE if I'm not creating something worth creating?

I've often thought that smart people need help knowing how to deal with being smart. I think there are certain challenges that smart people need help dealing with. Have your read any of the existentialist philosophers? I can't promise that you'll feel better but you'll get an idea of how other thinkers have dealt with the absurdity of life and the fear of meaninglessness. Kierkegaard wrote an interesting essay on Sisyphus. It's a little dense, but thinking about it helped me. Personally, I ended up liking Voltaire's approach: Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing on the lifeboats. Trust me, you have interesting ideas. Why not make a college counselor's day and share some of them. It's free. Why not? Oh yeah, and there are some things which you're written that sound like what I say when I'm depressed. Have you read up on depression yet?

You will learn a lot about yourself through drawing that is not goal-oriented. And, as an added and unexpected bonus, you might like your creation a lot. Plus, some of the best drawings came out of doodling to kill time or tolerate a boring meeting.

PS remember that the barriers to entry into the publishing world are far lower now than they were when you were 13. If you like making comics, you can easily publish them.

I'm not a smart person so I have nothing to deal with in that department. I don't like philosophy because it makes me feel more stupid than I already am due to the fact that, philosophically, I am always the black sheep (I always have the unpopular opinion, the incorrect perspective on an issue, and everyone thinks I am a devil's advocate when really I'm just wrong all of the time). What would talking to my councelor about my ideas do? Finally I have read up on depression and it just doesn't really seem to fit me. It is similar, but distinct enough that I feel that the title befits me.

I don't want to make comics any more, I can't draw. I like writing because it's much easier to create art within clearly established rules, boundries, and principles (a language) than the freeform visual arts. It's something I can learn. Unlike an artists eye and hand you don't need talent or ability to write, just a lot of time. I lack talent, but at the moment I have a healthy supply of time at my disposal.

You're the best in the world at doing things the anothercliche way. In this day and age, there's millions of smart people out there, everything has already been done, and there's always going to be some people out there who are better at any given thing, but there's only one anothercliche, at least until they start cloning humans.

I don't like doing things my way. I think that I'd much rather not be terrible at everything, and that's why I'm trying to find ways to improve so I can not do things my way. My way is not satisfactory. Also from a purely technological standpoint we could possibly clone humans with our existing technology. Several human clone embryos were succesfully generated in California, and theoretically if they had been allowed to gestate they could have developed into human clones (they were destroyed due to ethical concerns). At this point it is just a matter of philosophy. Personally I'd love to be cloned (not sure about how the clone would feel) as it'd make me noteworthy.

Upon doing further research that is not correct (as per usual). We are very close in theory but with existing meathods we do not believe the clones would be stable or that the embryos would develop properly into livig humans. I was going to edit my comment but for some reason I cannot do so any more. Still it would be cool in my mind.

Oh, now your username makes sense. Another cliche - a clone. Got it. Not that it helps you in any way.

but honestly, your way of thinking is not cliched. You are an unusual person. Highly unusual. You might not have found what you would excel at, that clearly you are not a typical guy. Does it help your outlook or hurt it to be told that you are very special?

Just for the feeling of enjoying the process. Could be joy, sensual pleasure, relaxation.

Example1: I enjoy making lines and colours, but I have no reason to. I'm always happy to do an illustration if needed by friends. I've done logos. It's natural to me to do it. Feels good mucking about with it

Example 2: Similarly, my husband noodles on wind instrument for relaxation and pleasure. I think the output is beautiful, but from his point of view, he's going for expressing his feelings in the moment. Tends to be brief, maybe 5-10 minutes max. He doesn't know scales or any music theory, and he got frustrated trying to learn songs, so he has no intention to create anything of lasting value or to anyone's standard. But he would never give up his noodling.

Does it make sense as a response to your question? It might be what GK Chesterton meant by, "Anything worth doing is worth doing badly."