Chaos after closure
This one is chaotic and freeing.
I woke up feeling anxious, but I have been writing so little, I don’t even know where and whether I still have a journal. So, here is a newsletter, that might feel like a journal entry.
Chaos after closure
Since I have been illustrating all year last year, it has deducted some of my fluidity with words. But truthfully, with both pictures and words I have been unable to express myself with clarity. Recently I have lost cohesion. I have constructed many thoughts for myself but they have all been blown away by rapid winds that have been storming through my brain and maybe even up until my prefontal cortex. I have been getting rid of so many preconceptions. I have been letting go of an indispensable part of my last two years, to realize slowly, carefully, and uncommitted, that it feels good that the arms that reach around me, measure different lengths now. Hair curls differently and straightens out.
I have steadily tended towards the future. But now, I am more interested in the spatial present. Surroundings matter in the present. I am keen on daily interactions. There is so much to observe and so much to repeat. I wonder where the focus on the future stems from. It might be that the future promises some kind of control (I can still change x for outcome y), but the present burns without alterations. No more staring into the dark; I see a candle that offers a light, that casts shadows deliberately. When the flame moves, shadows change, and I redirect my view and find myself sitting differently. So, I guess, I am learning to take a seat. To sit with it and watch the light change.
Part of it, is the beauty of no interference. Untouched time and emotions. I am not waiting for a text, not waiting for a time to see them, not having to explain myself, not challenging small things, not having to sit out emotions together, not having to wait for a time to eat, or to watch a second episode of a show. I love compassion but I realize how difficult it is too. I have been aching for someone more like me and now I am by myself and I couldn’t be more like me.
And then, there is the question looming: Can we stay friends? Shortly after breaking up, I wrote: “He is not lost. Just differently accompanied.” I have been asking around. “Are you still friends?” The verdict is that it depends on the reason of the breakup. A lack of passion and lust, means you can move on as friends. Unfulfilled potential, means there is a wish for friendship but it ends in a complicated relation that will usually not end in friendship. And while I wanted friendship, I now want solitude first. I am feeling deep rejection. But my friends tell me, that it is about what I feel like doing. Not about what may be right. Go out, meet other people. Stay in, be by yourself. Feel outside, feel inside. Feel excitement and flattery, feel disillusionment and chaos. And I wonder, where is the love I feel while I reject the one I have loved? But then I come home or I already walk home with my dog. She makes me laugh a lot. She is a child that is silly and sassy and I know that she has all my love. A love that is not transferrable between lovers but one that she gives unconditionally and that I feel equally. I am on the street talking to her and laughing when she does her little things that make her herself. With have our rituals. She wakes me up to be let under the blanket. I shake my head and she will move somewhere else. I lay on the couch and she jumps right next to me. We let out deep breaths at the same time. She has been the best reminder, that I haven’t removed myself from compassion, but that compassion is best given without conditions. So then, I guess I am not looking for “unconditional love” but unconditional compassion for a conditional love. Because, love is nothing I can make sense of other than experiencing its inflation all around.
And if you wonder, who will give you answers to all these questions, I recommend Joni Mitchell and to read word for word the lyrics of Both Sides Now.
Hanging out with older adults
A personal error of mine, was to not consult more older adults. Since I have started my new job, I am now around thirty and forty-somethings and it makes me see adulthood with more clarity. I think I have rejected the idea of reaching for more drive, more future, and more discretion because I couldn’t picture it that well. But I see now, the sweet, simple fun of continuing each day with what you know better than the day before for a long time. Affording vacations and short get aways. Working but not making work their life. Going for drinks with friends, dinners, and eating out more. Being confused and figuring it out more easily.
I have now bridged twenty-five years of age and I had to admit to myself that I am part of it now. It may be career-centered despair or money-oriented complaints, but it is time to figure them out. I am slowly starting; I am going to the gym to build muscle that will fade first. I am figuring out how I want to work. I think I am quite slow about it, especially because the most intriguing adults are those doing their own thing and what is mine? Currently my career plan is to become a personality hire in industries I like. But seeing older adults has given me closure; they all have found their jobs, their partners, their cities, their apartments, their hobbies, and their routine.
Most of all, it has been fun being their equal. I have lunch with them in the office. We talk about our dates and partners. We talk about our weekend plans and we are slowly becoming friends. And while doing so they guide me. Sometimes I just want to call them all together so I can ask them questions, and sometimes I actually do and they respond greatly. There is so much less doubting and less irritation. What I am trying to say is: I have accepted this age of no guidelines and I think I like myself enough now, to no longer feel afraid of the challenges that they bring.
Casual (??!?o_O) dating
Dating is fun for two days until it is just blind guessing a vibe. Make me feel seen; call me Quizmaster ironically; call me flower platonically; stare; banter; tell me I look like Uma Thurman; ask questions; tell me your lore; get up to show me what you saw across the street; tell me you will become a morning person for me; text without overthinking. I guess I am not one to disregard intimacy nor dismantle intimacy for something else that it isn’t. There must be a value to intimacy that does not let you trade it neutrally. I hate dating without intention because I rarely act inconsequentially, but I love dating for the fun of it; for the potential. There is so much illusion, it makes me dream. The sobering moment though is understanding that you end up overanalysing more of your own potential than any other person. You are reflecting what you accept, crave, and resent. Maybe I am nowhere as close to self-actualization as I thought. Maybe I need to think more of myself again. I don’t think we are better off alone, but I think it shows who you would settle for.
Can I be an invisible artist?
There is a battle unfolding, that I cannot win or loose. It involves my values against commodification and my craving for personal fulfillment. Because nothing works out right; I know know know that I do am creative but I haven’t understood how. I am creative without expression. A book idea here, an illustration project there, a song here, a written text there. There is no substance. I don’t look for inspiration. I feel it but I am lost with it. And I truly wanted to work as a creative, but I feel like there is no authenticity to me. I will find another job. I will grow up into having my hobbies. I think creativity proves itself with age. There will be an idea. There will be a hundred more. But there will never be true fullfillment, when I am an idea-generator with no follow up. I could be doing so many things. How conventional do I want to be or how broke? I do not let it milk me. In some way it makes me believe me more in my creativity. I cannot produce like clockwork. But I also am unable to find out how I can be in demand. I am waiting for things to connect within my brain. I feel like I am not seeing a connection but I feel like it makes sense the way I am. I might finish my book. I might start working in corporate. I might stay broke. I might become an illustrator. I want to create without purpose and viewers. I want to create in a big study without obligation. Truthfully, I would like to be an invisible artist.
Lists of pairs
Recently I have making lists but never gotten further than two points on the list, which technically just makes it a pair. Some good pairings:
Good Bandnames: Narcopaloma, Disco demolition night (see Wikipedia article)
Ways in which I feel seen: Saying I look like Uma Thurman, calling me Quizmaster
Things that are pleasant and unpleasant at the same time: Pronouncing words correctly according to their original lanaguage, wearing Lidl socks
Recommendation #1 - Kodak Memo Shot Era
I wanted to gatekeep this one but I could never based on how excited I am about this. It’s a cheap camera/label printer that lets you take and print pictures instantly as stickers. Think Polaroid but more raw, cooler, and more modern. I know carry my picture book where I put all the sticker pictures into and it has been the most fulfilling balance between memorizing and low effort picture taking. Additionally, you can print a picture as many times as you’d like or just create a lof of labels, if you would need to.
Recommendation #2 - Wikipedia pages
Disco Demolition Night
Enrico Fermi
Gregor Gog
Alfred Russel Wallace
Recommendation #3 - Sentimental Value
I am yearning to just rewatch the intro of this movie (although this is not important at all) but I just deeply loved this movie. It was a story where the plot was kept unknown, where the actors were incredible and where there were so many topics and themes intervowen into a rounded story that I was between awe and later on tears.
Recommendation #4 - Roses Only by Marianne Moore
You do not seem to realise that beauty is a liability rather than an asset—that in view of the fact that spirit creates form we are justified in supposing that you must have brains. For you, a symbol of the unit, stiff and sharp, conscious of surpassing by dint of native superiority and liking for everything self-dependent, anything an
ambitious civilisation might produce: for you, unaided to attempt through sheer reserve, to confute presumptions resulting from observation, is idle. You cannot make us think you a delightful happen-so. But rose, if you are brilliant, it is not because your petals are the without-which-nothing of pre-eminence. You would look, minus thorns—like a what-is-this, a mere
peculiarity. They are not proof against a worm, the elements, or mildew but what about the predatory hand? What is brilliance without co-ordination? Guarding the infinitesimal pieces of your mind, compelling audience to the remark that it is better to be forgotten than to be remembered too violently, your thorns are the best part of you.