Tag: writing

057a – some clarity

It’s been a difficult week. Anxiety has been super active, and I’ve found that it likes to focus most on two subjects: career and love. 

The interesting thing to realise is that my anxiety doesn’t focus on geography as much lately. (I think this could be a sign that India is working well for me, potentially. However, I know that it could be conditional on the fact that I have kept my daily frustrations minimised to a high level. I think I do feel more number of smaller, daily frustrations here and yet feel more of a long-term overall groundedness. But if the frustrations were more for any reason, there is potential for that to rock that feeling of overall stability, of course). 

re: career

I’ve gotten more clarity on this as well. I’ve found that music and writing are the two forms of creative expression that I gravitate most towards (for various reasons which I know very well but don’t need to list out here). I can legit sit at home and play, sing and learn music all day, and that’d keep me at peace and also happy and also satisfied, fulfilled. If I were living in a vacuum, I’d probably continue life the way it has been over the last couple months for at least another couple years. But because we live in a society, and money is a thing, I’m thinking I’ll start looking for part-time, remote jobs (what kind, I don’t know yet) starting January. This would still allow me to continue to spend on creative pursuits, I think. And then I can always reevaluate. 

I also think I’m not a big fan of the term “career”. I don’t think I’ll be working on building another career, so to speak. I’m probably more aligned with the idea of jobs, yes, when you need money, and otherwise of course spending your time meaningfully is important, and for me that meaning can be derived from the little things. In the current phase of my life, majority of my “work”-time would be devoted to creative expression, whether or not I share the results with the world or not. It’s what allows me to best explore my inner world (and maybe even the external world), and it’s what gives me the most joy and meaning. Whether or not it’s enough for long-term satisfaction is something I’ll probably know with more time, but for now this is enough. 

re: love 

I’m learning to focus more on the present, as opposed to worries about the future. This is obviously valid for life in general too, but can sometimes really show up with relationships and dating stuff. I’m learning to work on some of my anxious-attachment symptoms, therapy has been super helpful with all of this. I’m learning to listen to my body and my gut as opposed to my mind. My mind is very loud, tuning into the body is often the only thing that helps me be closer to what I really want. 

Time to head out for my vocals lesson. Cheers! 

050 – two months of moving to India + 50,000 words

Lately I’ve had nights where I wake up with the same thoughts that were buzzing in my head when I was going to sleep. It’s kinda weird, because sleep is almost always a good way to get a “reset”. Without this reset, the day that’s coming up can feel really bleak (if the night had been feeling that way). I woke up kind of depressed today. I’ve been feeling low since the last two days. Which, of course, I’m generally used to, ie periods of feeling low, but things were still a bit tough this weekend. 

This lowness was making me doubt my moving-to-India decision quite strongly. I’m okay now, did a bit of physical exercise, had my afternoon coffee, played a game of online Catan, and consumed a bit of nicotine too. In the meanwhile, my mind was able to come up with some counters for this doubt. 

  • I did this to minimise regrets, and that’s still very important. If I plan to adjust to India even for a full year, I will have to go through the doubt days. The days when it feels like a bad decision. That’s just a part of any big move. I’ve had similar days in grad school in Atlanta, in SF and even in Amsterdam. Regardless of the place or the thing, I’m like a 100% sure that “doubt” is just a part of the package. 
  • I literally don’t have the option to not be working anywhere else. So I just need to remind myself to be grateful for the career freedom I have right now. I don’t get that anywhere else. When I see people living in all these beautiful countries and “having fun”, I don’t see the 40 hours work-weeks they’re living for that fun. (Yes, that may still be enjoying that, but I personally wouldn’t at this time, so it’s just not an option for me.) I don’t get to compare the “fun” if I don’t keep in mind the work thing. 
  • The other day I was talking to my sister, who was having similar feelings about her decision to be in the US. And we concluded that no place has everything, so even if we want to divide our time in multiple places in the long-term, in the short-term we still need to focus on making the most of where we are. That advice is obviously valuable for me as well. While I’m here, I need to focus on all the things I have here. ie the people, the art I want to make and all the additional time I have that I get to use on whatever I want. 

That brings me to the next thing. How do I want to spend all this extra time I have? I think I’ve already addressed that here. Maybe it might be worth putting down some long-term goals to make all of those buckets a little less vague. 

Currently, I think I’m also feeling blocked because house-search is taking a good amount of bandwidth, and I feel like I’m not able to fully feel the freedom that I want (need) until that isn’t done. And that’s fair. Since that is something I’m sure I need to get started on “life”, it’s okay for me to feel blocked by it. Of course, in ideal conditions, we won’t be waiting for X and Y to be sorted before we could work on Z, ie if Z was important enough, but I don’t think I’m there yet. And it’s not like I’m not doing Z at all. I’m just not fully able to enjoy it. 

Since this is going to be my 50th post here, I figured it might be worth making it a 1000-word post. I was planning to reflect a bit on writing anyway, so maybe I can just do that here. 

  • I’ve increasingly been feeling that setting up this blog was one of the best things I could have done for my writing goals. And my creative goals in general too. The freedom of just being able to write whatever you want and hit “Publish” without thinking much about it is amazing. The pipeline is easy, there isn’t much overhead, and I get to feel satisfied about sharing most of what I’m writing. 

  • I have 70 subscribers here! Yay! While the number may not feel like a lot in today’s age of multiple thousands followers and subscribers that most people have, it’s still worth celebrating, since this is purely word-vomits, and by some miracle I have 70 people who receive updates whenever I share something. (They may or may not read it, it doesn’t matter, really, but I’m super duper grateful anyway)

  • Because dedicating a place for just writing was so helpful to me (and similarly the music account I have on Insta was as well), I do think it might be worth separating out my photography and art accounts too. I’m super conflicted about this one, and I follow a couple people who’ve experienced the same conflict too, but data tells me I should do it, if I really just want to do “more” of either (or both) things.

  • The other day someone asked me what is the one thing (activity) I feel like is “mine”, the one which I feel really called towards, or really am able to feel “attached” to in a way… and I said “writing”. I think that itself for someone like me speaks volumes. And I think I have this blog to thank for it.

  • I posted a lot in May and June! So having the spare time to do this did make me do more of this, and that makes me incredibly happy.

  • Getting back into reading has been good too. I’ve had 2-3 years of very minimal reading, and now that I’m getting back into it, it feels really good. While reading is not necessarily a requirement for writing, it does help to get some inspiration from time to time. I finally left the book I was stuck on even though I thought I didn’t want to leave it midway, and started reading a new one, which was a great decision because a. It’s been a really enjoyable read and b. It makes me want to write more. 

Alright, that’s a wrap on 50,000 words on here. Happy July! 

048 – solitude, after a while

Haven’t written a 1000-word post in ages. I’m finally back from Bangalore and it’s been an eventful trip so maybe it’s worth reflecting on and I can manage a longer post.

This was probably my longest trip (12 days) in many years. Although it was a different kind of trip (ie I was still staying at people’s homes and not in hotels or airbnbs), it was still the longest time away from “home”, in a way. 

Something I found myself craving on a day-to-day basis was alone time. But not just alone time where I don’t have to interact with people (because I did get this), but alone time in the sense of not worrying about being perceived for a few hours as well. I found myself really valuing the experience I was having in between destinations (ie cab rides), just listening to music and chilling. I was reminded of my teenage years, or even the time you spend in hostels (dorms) in college, where you really have to work hard to find pockets of alone time as well as privacy. I was taking phone calls in balconies and in the common society areas, which was also really reminiscent of college, where we’d have to often get creative to find privacy. It was also interesting to see how many people were doing the same thing – ie when I was downstairs I’d often come across other people also taking phone calls, often long ones. It was cool to randomly feel connected by this activity.

I also didn’t play much music or sing during the whole stay, so I spent most of my time today just singing and playing, and I realised I was craving that a lot and thoroughly enjoyed it. Definitely experienced flow with it today.  

Overall, I will admit that “experience” is so much more important to creativity than pure “time”. (ie the time dedicated to creative activities). Like the experience and the number of feelings I’ve had in the last 2 weeks has been quite valuable. I think I have a lot of material (maybe not direct) that I want to reflect on or use for art.   

Got to reconnect with some of my older friends with whom I hadn’t had the chance to spend a lot of time over the last couple years, and also got to meet a lot of new people (some important, some just good in terms of meeting new people, but mostly good hangs), so pretty happy about that. Also, great food all around. Loved that.

Addictions went a bit up throughout the whole period so looking forward to cutting down on that a bit. At least, theoretically. Physically, thinking about working on quitting creates very strong feelings in my stomach, so that’s definitely worth noticing. I’ve decided on keeping a limit for 3-4 months, and then working on reducing the limit every few months. I’m committing to being more strict from today, and promising myself that I will come back to abide by the limits every time I fall off the wagon. 

Other things: Most of my friends are software engineers, and observing them on a daily basis did make me think that maybe it’s not too bad to pick up engineering again. Apart from 2-3 months of higher workloads, I think most people’s work schedules are pretty decent. And a couple of friends also said work isn’t super mentally demanding, and although they meant this is a complaint, for me I think that’s a good thing to have. So, I’m optimistic about this option if I need to (or want to) come back to it a year or so down the line. 

Had to cancel another trip that was due this week since I’m a little drained (mentally and emotionally) and as much as FOMO I’ll experience when I see my friend’s pictures, I’m quite sure that it’s the right decision. But definitely want to make a trip to the mountains sometime soon. Maybe August or September. 

More other things: I realised that the reason other people’s emotions and problems affect me a lot is because I tend to sometimes take responsibility for it all. I feel a need to fix it or make it better or to really be there for them (even at the cost of my own thing sometimes). And I think I need to work a bit on this, ie I do want to be there for my friends, but I don’t want to feel their feelings for them. I guess I want to be able to empathise and be there for them without taking on (any part of) their emotions.  

Alright, I think that’s all I have for the trip-reflection. I’ll now share some other thoughts that are coming up. 

A progress-related thought on writing: 

I used to worry that some of the stuff I’m writing about could already be covered in previous posts, but today I realised that it’s fine if that’s the case. If stuff shows up again and again, that just means it’s persisting, and there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s valuable information. In a way, if I thought repeats itself, the situation is still unique, because the thought repeating itself for the 2nd time versus for the 3rd time (at least when it’s written down) are actually two separate situations. 

Last meta-writing thought:

I feel like I jump from vastly different topics and ideas when I write in a word-vomit / journal format. I think that’s okay, but I do sometimes wonder what the experience is like for a reader. For example, Ocean Vuong does that too in “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” but because his writing is so beautiful, I feel like it doesn’t matter whether the thoughts are super connected or not. In fact, sometimes the jumps create more beauty because they leave the reader a little bit curious about whether the “previous topic” ended or not. And if so in what way. Or rather, the incompleteness of certain thoughts adds more beauty, essentially. Anyway, that might be something worth working on. ie how to make seemingly disconnected thoughts connect, or flow, somehow. 

047b – sadness is freeing

There is a question that various artists and creators have addressed over the decades: Is sadness, pain necessary to create art? [1]

Everyone has their own answers, and I’m not going to attempt to share a version of my answer to this today. But I do want to share another observation, somewhat related. I do find that there is a certain freedom in sadness that I don’t feel in happiness. With happiness, I find myself getting attached, wanting to hold on to it longer, wanting to preserve, and overall just very afraid to mess something up. With sadness, or other “negative” emotions, on the other hand, I feel extremely free. There is no pressure to be a certain way, “you’re already sad”, things can’t really get worse, and I feel like that opens up ideas, the page, the canvas, everything. 

So while pain may not be “necessary” to create art, I do think it lends better to most art than positive emotions do. But of course, this may differ for people. 

One part of this could be my particular relation with positive emotions. Why is it that positive emotions demand more attention and preservation from me? I guess it’s insecurity at some level. Maybe I’m more confident in giving up control when it comes to negative emotions (because I learnt that I needed to, and there wasn’t another way), and in that way I’ve actually learnt to process them even better than positive emotions. I need to let positive emotions also take their own course. I need to accept that those, too, cannot last. 

The other part though is the “sharing” of art, and not just its creation. Firstly, I do believe that more sharing leads to more creation, and that is the primary reason why sharing is important. But even with sharing, it’s easier to share stuff related to negative emotions (for me), because even though happiness gets more rewarded on social media, I’m almost worried about conveying that I’m happy and sorted. Because if I convey that once, I worry that people are not going to be around when I’m sad again. But maybe that’s related to same thought around permanence. Maybe because I want happiness to be somewhat permanent, I think that other people look at it the same way as well. Maybe I feel the world has an idea of permanence around happiness as well. 

Okay, to summarise: I feel more freedom around negative emotions as compared to positive emotions. I think negative emotions are not necessary but do lend better to the creation as well as sharing of art. I worry that the world also has the same ideas as me when it comes to relating happiness or positive emotions with a certain amount of permanence. 

[1] Ocean Vuong talks about this in “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” 

046b – i feel shitty when i don’t journal enough

Haven’t written anything for the last 4-5 days and it’s getting to me. Last few days have been quite emotionally exhausting since I’ve been spending a time with a lot of old friends and in general, what seems like an insanely new environment. I did expect a lot of discomfort to show up during this trip, but knowing that didn’t help me too much in navigating it. Finally got some time to myself today though, and that’s been helpful with recharging etc. 

I’ve been having an explosion of thoughts right around midnight which then keeps me up for at least 2-3 hours before I finally fall asleep, and needless to say— that’s not pleasant at all. I think journaling before bedtime (like I’m doing right now) will be helpful. 

There’s a few triggers I’m recognising which I probably need to be mindful of when I’m hanging out with a lot of people (old and new): 

  • Happy couples, relationshipy things 
  • Overly work-focused conversations 
  • People who are seemingly thriving, well-adjusted and sorted wrt more than 70% of their life things 
  • Being “bad” at anything 

That’s all I can think of right now but I’d love to keep coming back to this list because I’m sure having it written down in front of me will be helpful. 

Otherwise, things are okay. I’m getting to explore Bangalore as a city a little bit and that’s nice. The (good) weather does make a difference, I’ve found. More like-minded people around (as compared to Delhi) and that might end up being important too. 

Sometimes I feel like going really deep into the micro-ness of situations. But I’m afraid. I’m afraid of putting it all out there. I think something I’m going to struggle with is how to talk (write) about the people around you without revealing too much. Not because I’m afraid of the truth of certain situations to be out there, but because sometimes the situation isn’t completely yours to tell. 

Feeling a lot of pressure to create and share more. I think I need to focus on skill development as opposed to just having this vague goal of “creating more”. Need some structure with all of these (creative) activities. Or at least some of them. Or maybe this is part of me realising I don’t actually enjoy them as much as I thought I did and I’m just not ready to accept that yet. Man, it’d be very disappointing if that were the case. 

I think lately, even though I’m not always happy (which of course is not possible either), I’m definitely more satisfied with life. Like overall, I’m satisfied and content with the decisions I’ve taken. And of course I’m still working on a lot of my shortcomings, some more important than others, but despite that, I’m definitely content with certain things: 

  • Having a regular journaling / blogging routine 
  • Making enough time for emotions and myself
    • Through regular therapy
  • Improvement on my ability and speed to come back to the present when needed
  • Having taken the decision to take this work-break & move to India 
  • My social connections

Alright that’s enough of the good and the bad. Write soon!

046a – time distribution

The part of me that worries about the future is also the part that has a really good imagination. I imagine being 60 and realising that I’ll have a lot of time to create all the art that I want. Provided my health stays somewhat okay, I can still do creative stuff at 60. Which also means it’s worth investing in the skills I want to pick up. Which means even if I’m not making great paintings right now, it’s still worth just doing the thing since I have around 20-30 years at least to get to the point my current self might probably be super proud of, then. 

I don’t have to rush over anything. As long as I’m not irrational or completely stupid about the way I spend my money, I think I can afford to take my time with things. 

In other news, I miss Amsterdam a little bit. I imagine everything must be really beautiful now that the summer must have arrived fully. I miss the afternoons, the evenings, I miss biking for errands. I miss storytelling nights at Mezrab and poetry nights at Labyrinth. I miss the coffee and the bread, and a random “Bedankt” here and there. 

Reconnecting with my friends here in India has been great though. There’s a level of familiarity and familiality (this should be a word) that is almost unbeatable.   

May has passed decently and June is going to be occupied with some travel. Once I’m back (ie July) I’ll start looking for apartments and move out of my parents’ place as soon as I find one. Looking forward to that, quite a bit. I’ve kicked off dating again and that’s been good, at least in the sense that I can afford to feel optimistic a bit, and don’t have to beat myself up about not putting in the effort on this front. I’m going to be 28 soon! Despite theoretically being in what I call “my yolo era”, of course the weight of societal expectations will trigger me about all of this from time to time. And the best defence to that (for my sake, I mean, not as an answer to society) of course, is — action.

I’ve been struggling a bit with how much time and bandwidth I want to reserve for the part of me that feels duty bound towards certain people (like family and friends). I think this is how I’d want to divide it*:  

  • Dating (20%) (14 hours)
  • Creative Goals and Pursuits (30%) (21 hours)
  • Well-Being & Health (20%) (14 hours) [Includes recreation] 
  • Social (15%) (10 hours)
  • Responsibilities (15%) (10 hours)
  • Misc [Future Planning? Lol idk? Other things] 

Okay I think this helps. This tells me how much I can afford to spend on these buckets and if I did actually spend my time this way I probably wouldn’t be unhappy. Currently I’m not living in ideal conditions so my time is not distributed this way, which is fine. I’m hopeful that once the distribution moves closer to what I’ve listed above, things should be better. I’ve left a bucket open for other things that may come up and demand some of this usable time of mine.

Anyway, good sesh. Let me know how y’all spend your time and if I’ve missed important buckets!  

*Rough weekly estimates. Calculated on the basis of having 10*7 hours of usable time every week after accounting for sleep, food etc, commute. 

045a – book review: on earth we’re briefly gorgeous

You know you’ve consumed something great when it changes you. Really changes you. Ocean Vuong’s “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous” does that for me.

I’ve been wanting to get back, really get back into reading for the longest time. And while this year has been better than the last couple years in terms of “successful” reading, it’s only now that I truly feel like I’m back. Ocean Vuong is obviously someone who loves words the way they are meant to be loved. And it’s this love that washes over you, dissolves a bit of you with every page. 

Every page is cathartic, every sentence is magic. 

It’s a book that makes you want to read more, write more, feel more, live more. 

Side note: this is what inspiration must truly feel like, to want a layer of this person added to your layers. And then you could apply this new combined layer as a filter to all your thoughts and everything you want to express, and that’d all be really great.

Anyway, the language in the book, by itself, is simple enough, and I mean that in the best way possible, and it’s the arrangement, the tone, and the content that makes it an absolute gem. I could tell you that it talks of war, of immigration, of love, of abuse, of family, of friendship, of art, of addiction, of identity but that’d give you very little information. 

What I want to tell you instead, is this: with every feeling that the writer expresses, there will be five more of your own that you’d be able to get in touch with. And then of course, there’d be some that you might just directly resonate with. Both of these experiences, when they occur truly, are priceless. 

If you had to read one book this year, make it this one.

043a – body dysmorphia ft. other feelings

I’m tired. Tired of living in my head. And yet, coming back to the present is so tedious. I don’t know why though. I don’t know. Maybe there’s feelings I’m trying to avoid. Who am I kidding, of course there’s feelings I’m trying to avoid. Feelings like.. like I’ve “wasted” my weekend. Like I actually don’t even know what I want to spend my time on. Like the things I want to spend my time on aren’t appealing anyway. Like it’s terribly hard, living in my body, because I constantly feel shitty. I’m sad about how anxious it makes me to step outside on a day I’m not feeling good about myself. My body dysmorphia is so strong. My avoidance behaviours make me feel so disconnected from the world sometimes. 

Okay, 2 minutes of meditation just helped me just now. I also remembered the first time I’d successfully been able to use meditation to feel okay. It was after after my first big/ever breakup. And I vividly remember the pain I was feeling at the time, and this insane urge to “just want to see her” once. I don’t know how I knew what meditation really was (I mean, it wasn’t as big and common a word back then), but I somehow did. And I looked it up and actually went out of my house to just try out some walking meditation. And man, it really was something. I guess awareness can be magical. The awareness that lets me observe myself feeling the shitty feelings. 

Yesterday was the first time I was actually overwhelmed by a positive emotion. I was feeling a ton of excitement about an idea that came to me and I really just couldn’t hold it or process it. I think it was combined with anxiety too, perhaps, which is why it wasn’t purely pleasurable. But I knew it was like 70% excitement and 30% something else. I don’t know. Eventually, I was able to calm down. 

I only have two weeks until I move and that’s kind of not sinking in either. I seem to have a lot of time but nothing to actually want to fill it with. Read a little bit about body dysmorphia on reddit and about how some people struggle with the same shit I do and I feel a little better now. 

There’s a lot of things I do to simply “avoid regrets”. I know that’s okay but I do wonder what life would be like I were able to do things because I “want to” do them. Basically, can pure “regret minimisation” be a good strategy? Maybe not, right? I don’t know, this needs more introspection. 

I really wanna move soon so I can start dating again. It’s been incredibly boring and hopeless over the last 1-2 months since I haven’t been able to do that. 

I think note to self: The third day is always a stretch. I did step out of the house for groceries yesterday but it still wasn’t enough. I think three straight days of “no plans as such” just does not work for me. Gotta stop at two, at max. 

042 – my relationship(s) with various art forms

I have a long weekend this weekend (really long, 4 days) and I’m currently on Day 2 of it. I wanted to take some time to out to reflect on.. well, what the title says. 

Writing 

This is my go-to choice of expression. While I don’t do “creative” writing as such, I’m pretty comfortable with my relationship with this. I regularly journal, blog, share small posts on instagram, and enjoy doing it. I generally mostly think in words, and there’s little-to-no inertia from a thought entering my brain to me putting it out on paper if I want to.

If I could improve on anything, that’d be working on more poetry + sharing it, long-form blogs so I can improve my ability to stick to a single topic or related topics. Eventually, I’d maybe want to write a book, if I ever come up with enough material for something that’s worth writing about / sharing with the world. 

Photography 

I really enjoy this as well. I like the activity, I’m also able to come up with enough “original”ish compositions, and I feel secure in how I’m able to use this as a form of expression. I like the idea of mixing aesthetics and meaning and I feel like I’m able to find a balance with this. I’m also comfortable with and enjoy sharing my pictures, and that’s always a good sign. 

I like clicking pictures more than I like consuming photos, but I like consuming them enough that I never lack inspiration. 

If I could improve on anything, I’d probably want to invest in some more lenses / a better camera, go out and do more photowalks (like I used to earlier), setup pipelines to explore selling prints, and try to find paid gigs or opportunities for collaboration. 

Music

This is the tough one. I think (or feel) that I enjoy this the most, more than writing or photography or painting. But I think the “problem” is that I’ve only ever been playing and singing covers all my life. Although over the last couple years I’ve somewhat started to experiment with making some original melodies but it’s been very slow, and very minimal. And I don’t think I enjoy making original music as much as I enjoy making original write-ups or photos. So the “originality” is where I get stuck on this.

And I don’t understand the differences very well. Like I don’t know what would be the equivalent of a “cover” when it comes to writing. Maybe narrating a poetry I really like? Yeah I suppose. And I can imagine that being pleasurable as well, of course. I think it’s a numbers thing. I’ve probably written like at least 500 original essays (including journaling) in my life, so that comes naturally to me. With original melodies, I’m at like 10 or something. So yes, this one’s tough. But I want to commit to this, and increase my numbers on original pieces. And then see where I’m at. Will also want to resume vocal lessons, and probably invest in either guitar / keyboard lessons. 

Painting / Digital Art 

This one is fairly new for me. I did this a lot as a kid and last year I tried getting back into this. I really really enjoy it, it’s satisfactory on a deep level. However, I do think that this is the one activity out of the 4 where I enjoy the results more than the process. I’m not super sure if I enjoy the process yet. I also feel a lot of inertia with getting the paint supplies + water etc ready to start working on something new. So I don’t know, I’m still learning how I feel about this one. Again, like with music, investing in classes would probably be the best course of action if I want to explore this more. 

— 

Since these are the main things I want to spend the next few months doing, going forward it’ll be nice to have a quick evaluation method for how everything’s going. I think the characteristics I majorly covered in the sections above are the following: 

Enjoyment 

  • How much do I enjoy the activity in general? 
  • Do I like the process or just the results? 
  • Am I wanting to be someone or do I genuinely enjoy the “doing”?

Originality 

  • Am I able to be somewhat original? 
  • Even if I am making copies, am I able to add my own touch to them? 
  • Am I able to express myself, my emotions? 

Ease, Comfort 

  • What is the general ease, logistical ease like? 
  • Am I able to pull numbers, am I able to engage regularly? 

Sharing 

Collaboration 

Monetary Viability 

  • This may or may not be important (or consequential), but it’s not irrelevant. 

— 

Wrote an almost 1000-word post after quite a while. Feeling good about it. Engagement is crucial. An obvious step after reflection would be goal-setting but I don’t feel like doing that at the moment. But I will, soon-ish. Let me know in the comments if I missed out on any important evaluative aspects! 🙂 

040a – connecting with myself

Haven’t written one of these in a while. Been going through a lot of stuff lately, not eventfully but feelings wise, but as a result I’ve finally gotten back into a little bit of working out that I’d completely given up for almost the last 6 months. So I did some good amount just now and I’m feeling spent. Post-workout clarity has also allowed myself to cancel a thing I was kind of dreading so I have the rest of the day free now.

The last 2-3 days have been pretty decent though, and the week overall too. Though I think my social life can be a little better and a little more fulfilling, overall not much to complain about these days. It’s getting a little less cold outside as well so that’s been a major pick-me-up. Creatively, I feel better too. Been writing a little bit and clicking pictures again, and that always makes me feel super nice. 

Really wanna make the most of this place and the people in the next two months so I can feel somewhat satisfied with my time here. (ie Amsterdam)

Anyway, something that was coming up a lot in the couple weeks before the one that just went by was a lot of feelings of loneliness and isolation. Some of it was just coming by due to not enough daytime plans and not enough socialisation in general, but I think of some of it was just my own. Something that came up in therapy is how feeling disconnected from even myself can cause this. And that feels true, as I’ve finally incorporated a little more physical activity and movement in my own routine, I’m feeling more connected with myself again. (This was what I knew I needed, this could of course differ for you)

One other thing I’ve been trying to do more of is learn more about art, what it is, how important it is to me and the world, etc etc. And I’ve talked about this before but I think a question that often comes up for me is whether there’s a difference between art and entertainment. (This comes up because personally I like to think about whether something I’m putting out in the world is just entertaining or whether it serves a bigger purpose. And while I don’t deny that entertainment does have its own value, I do think art is a little different.) But I finally found my answer with this quote by Erik Hoel: Entertainment, etymologically speaking, means “to maintain, to keep someone in a certain frame of mind.” Art, however, changes us. I’m sure there’s a lot of research on these two concepts and how they tie together, I’m sure a lot of people have different opinions about this, but for me, I think I agree with this idea that not all entertainment can be “art”. Stumbled upon this quote from Brody Deschanel’s channel, which itself has some really well-researched and well written video essays on a variety of topics. 

So, to recap:

  1. Had a few lonely and isolating weeks, realised that connection with myself can be a good solution too, when I can’t always hang out with other people.
  2. Entertainment and art are both valuable, but I think art serves a bigger purpose than entertainment.