Consumer or Artist or Both or Neither

 

(some Adobe Illustrator thing I made when I discovered you could make star shapes have more points)

  I really want to write on here more but college pretty much just started and I want to really settle in before I dedicate my time to any other things. I get distracted so easily. I even have some homework that I could totally be working on right now, but I'm not really feeling like it. I like to post my little posts on my spam instagram but sometimes I go way to far into depth that it feels more like what I should be doing on here or in a diary than meaningless photo dumps. They're actually full of meaning! 

    On college: I like my classes and my teachers (professors?) for the most part. There are some classes where the prof is so vague in what they want you to do for an assignment, and then you ask for clarification and end up becoming more confused. Its weird trying to make friends. I feel like I've gone over it so many times in my head and in conversation with people,  I just can't dwell on it too much because it feels like I'm pitying myself rather than actually making an effort. My Integrative Seminar class and our first project has gotten me to think more about how I write and how impersonal I am when I write. The Studio and Seminar classes have the same theme which is Memory, so our first project was to write on one page about a specific memory but in an unconventional way. Non-linear, line breaks, strikethroughs and blackout poetry, etc, paired with a reading + discussion of Ocean Vuong's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (love that book!). When I was trying to write I just kept going over the chronology of what happened in the memory and the surface level emotions that I was feeling. Maybe I should go to a writing workshop or something because I feel like it should come more naturally than it actually does..? Self doubt gets in the way of writing in "personal" ways.  Who cares if what I do is cliche, stereotypical, its been done before, or unoriginal? I care- I care a little too much about that. 

    Writing here is hopefully going to be kind of like exposure or rejection therapy. If I want to be a creative I need to actually create rather than think too hard if something is good enough for the world to see. If you love art, and music, and the act of creation, then there will be a point where you can't stand to solely be the consumer. You want to participate! Thats something I want to try and do more. Not only creating for yourself, but sharing it with others. It feels almost selfish not to do so. The truth is that anyone can do it, and unfortunately a lot of people have the idea that they could never create something as good as the art they admire. I wish people, including myself, could create without fear of judgement or materialistic goals in mind. ***

    Even this very topic is so played out, countless people have talked about it before me, and even more will talk about it after me. I'm actually getting a very uncanny feeling right now writing this. Maybe I've written these exact words before. Or said them to someone. If you're reading this and I said this to you, thats pretty cool! If you wrote this before, I think I plagiarized you, sorry. We all plagiarize, probably. 

    A lot of my assignments are forcing me to do an insane amount of introspection that makes it all the worse to try and simultaneously meet people and get to know them. We're all sharing personal details about ourself which makes it both comfortable and uncomfortable at the same time. You know when you're ready to accommodate others but not give yourself any grace whatsoever? Yeah. Plus I've had a cough for past week and a half. I have to leave the classroom to get rid of my coughing fits... its horrible. AND: I got stuck in the Parsons building elevator for 40 minutes last week. I don't care, I will milk that horrible event for sympathy because it was truly an ordeal. Full elevator and it jerks to a full stop between floors. We had to call someone to fix it. The ventilation and AC was kind of weak and I was sweating bullets. 

     So I will close this one out with an affirmation that I will not get stuck in the elevator again, I will not judge myself so harshly, I will create, I will be weird, curious, and honest, which is something some faculty member at orientation week said. I wrote it down in my notes at the top of my class schedule as a reminder. 

*** edit: I'm now realizing that I wrote about this exact thing in my research paper for AP Literature.?? I must really love talking about this. okay...