processing

Thinking today of how my means of processing life, my processings of processings, have changed over time. Writing - journaling in notebooks and reMarkables or blogging here - used to be the main way, but now I seem to have moved more over into fiction and cartooning. Attendance Cards as graphic blogging, having replaced the old daily maunderings that gave birth to this space for the last two years now.

In an effort to figure out where I am now – who I am now, creatively and, perhaps, more deeply – I've spent the last few years revisiting all of the art forms of my past: while it wasn't unpleasant to work thorugh Stone's STICK CONTROL, a return to music yielded little more than a reminder of why I left music in the first place (it served its purpose, to get me out of Ohio when I needed it most) and so here I am, even further back, playing with drawing and the memories of stick figures with my grandmothers at their respective dining room tables. Maybe this is where I was always meant to be, having given it up in my late teens, or maybe it's nothing in particular but what it is. Doesn't matter. I'm enjoying myself either way.

It's a hell of a thing to discover the source of your deep-rooted disappointment with yourself: only took 43 years to figure it out, but wow. Better late than never?

exploring

At the risk of sounding like a TED talk circa 2010-12, I've been relabeling my working time as "exploring time," a distinction from previous iterations of I: instead of being a writer or working on a project or learning to draw, cartoon, whatever, I'm exploring writing, exploring drawing, cartooning, zine-making, what have you. Part of it is a removal of a should / must / have to aspect of my creative practice instilled in me not only by my music conservatory background (that uniquely creative form of Catholic guilt) but by viewing my practice as a means of escape for parts bigger and better and what have you. As my brief bio says, "Among other things, I write": this is my way of freeing myself to explore those other things sans guilt or have to / must / should.

a third place

Intrigued by Oldenburg’s concept of the "third place" and cognizant that, as I've been working from home for 95% of my "career," I don't even have a second place, except The Paintshop, nevermind alone a place possessed of the communal / conversational features of Oldenburg's characteristics. Online and virtual doesn't count (in my mind). Maybe I need to work on readjusting my mindset to The Paintshop being both the second and third places? – though given that I haven't felt at home at any place save my grandparents' house on the lake and my shoebox apartment in Boston (perhaps that’s why I loved the city so much: an abundance of potential third places?), one could argue that I barely have a first place. Note that this isn't a lament, necessarily, but perhaps a framework for making my spaces feel more like a home. Added Oldenburg's book to the Kindle, as seems to be my wont for most non-fiction works of late. Food / thought, etc etc.

Felt it in K-12, in music (school and otherwise), in film, feel it in writing, feel it in the now: that there's a fundamental piece of something missing in my mental makeup which I've somehow managed to convince myself over these last three decades that, should I be able to figure it out, I'd be set (though I know this is probably bullshit). Maybe it's a faith in myself, a faith that I don't even have but know I haven't lived up to: these years, decades now, of spinning wheels tend to erode that faith – and make one even more stuck than before.

playacting(?)

Effort of late being to discern the point at which my work times veer from essential aspect of myself (as my psychology prof wouldve said: breathing, sleeping, eating, shitting) to playacting: while the pre-breakfast part, from about 0445 until 0745 feels like the former, the post–, more often than not, feels like the latter. Question, then: do I stick only with the times when it's an essential aspect of myself, or do I strive to make the playacting feel as essential? Or do I roll with the playacting? Pondering, with no answer in sight, but hey if nothing else that Panama Canal scene in 3 BODY PROBLEM was all kinds of oh my fuck amazing.

internal

Felled, by hands competent (read: neither mine nor weather): the longstanding evil chestnut tree at the back of the yard. Far better to bring it down in a controlled manner than the alternative – which, I feared, was becoming more and more likely to happen. Only big change / adjustment being that the little green shed was thrust out of the shade for the first time in 600 years, give or take, and, so I – that we might enter and retrieve various yard implements sans oxygen – had to cut a vent into the thing (read: a lopsided rectangular hole stuffed with chicken wire).

But hey, I got to play with my reciprocating saw.

Continued: a(nother) recalibration of my reasons for continuing my writing practice to being less from the external (career, being heard, etc) to the internal (because I want to – though I probably should have deeper reasons that). Tried social again and I didn't like the thought patterns it dredged up: too much reliance on the external, creation for it, unnecessary pressure. Wasted how many years of my life subjecting myself to that? No, much better to type things up here, post them, and be done.

Note: that you are presently unable to discern deeper internal reasons for continued practice may be the source of the problem. Solution: plumb the depths – or say fuck it and do whatever you want, IDK.

Since eliminating all long-term projects and career ambitions and switching to little short things that I release whenever I feel like it (or they feel like it), I want to spend all day tinkering on my various explorations – but don't feel like life is getting in my way when that, inevitably, doesn’t happen. First time in more than 20 years I've experienced that; a most welcome change.

One of the things I’m working at is making myself enjoy the backyard this summer, and not look at it like the neverending project I’ve viewed it as since I moved in here. Applies to too many other life aspects as well.

purpose

Been thinking about a piece I read (the link of which I can't find, sorry) on figuring out your purpose, or at least a purpose for a given moment in time, and, while it did include the standard "volunteer" / "shake things up" (done both), one thing it did include that the others didn't was to, paraphrased, explore old hobbies and passions. Can see that I've been doing that for awhile now: drumming, comics and action figure and antique collecting – perhaps this advice and my own exploration of it acts as a means of recognizing where I went off the path and reorienting myself to an unseen map that takes into account all the mileage accrued between then and now?