my writing puts my writing to shame.

oh dear.
I just happened upon a folder full of my freshman year philosophy papers. As is the custom, I felt a little nostalgia, and a little embarrassed at my ideologies. I hadn't quite expected to feel ashamed though. Not about my papers, they're pretty good for a freshman, but about my current writing skill. I'm nowhere near the writer I was 8 years ago.
How did that happen? I like to think I'm just rusty from having been lazy so long. Of course my writing skill withered; I've written precisely one essay for anyone's evaluation in the last five years, and that was in Japanese.
I am sort of afraid that this goes a bit deeper than that though. I worry that I'm becoming one of those "used to be smart"-types who slide gradually down until even their present circumstances are overwhelming. It's not for lack of talent (I hope), or even lack of ambition. I just can't seem to find any one topic, idea, field, dream, etc. that seems worth investing myself in. So I dabble. I learn a little about everything and a lot about nothing.
Take today for example. I finished reading Othello (my 3rd Shakespearean tragedy in 2 weeks), and Empire of the Sun, studied a few hundred kanji, read 50 pages or so of another book, and started another two or three projects of differing sizes. I didn't touch my Japanese law books (my avowed discipline of focus), and didn't speak a word of Japanese to anyone including the clerk at the grocery store. That is to say, I made no real progress toward any of my goals, despite having quite a few of them.
I think I'll be turn really effective the moment I have mastered everything I don't really value.