hello my name is darren and i constantly have something to say and it is both ruining and enhancing my life to an awe-inspiring degree and that’s just the opening line how the time do pass i left you as an online emo dude and i have returned as whatever the hell this is, i’ve also just checked the news and a lot has happened since i’ve blogged last, i fear that i don’t know… everyone’s favourite internet graduated musical comic also discovered projectors the imbecile ! i’ve been thinking about not just the random rants but about writing and creativity and i guess my relationship with it and how in a very real way it’s the only thing keeping me from blasting myself off of this godforsaken rock but it’s also very challenging and at the same time being the only thing i really know how to do which of course poses the occasional existential predicament um i think he’s only writing this to promote his website but i also did just throw it around in a sort of modest self-aware blah blah blah, if no one else will say it then fine i guess i will…!
making things is hard!, oh my god he’s so brave, here is a quick insight into my psyche… often when i have found myself feeling kind of bad i will reflect on the last couple weeks of my life and one of the first questions i ask of myself those couple weeks is did i write anything? and the answer is almost always no and instantly just the idea of an open word doc floods serotonin into my pitiful little brain as i remember ah yes that thing i do the thing…the thing and whether that’s because i’m simply intrinsically wired to enjoy it or because i received well-timed praise at impressionable periods in my life either way i struggle to not do it
writing is how i make sense of everything it makes me feel purposeful and good, good in the way sleep makes you feel good. it grounds me in otherwise frightening and uncertain situations, i simply can’t not and i’ll say now although that’s what i do
this post isn’t just about that!
it’s about anything you could be or make and i think a lot of creative people regardless of what they do, feel the same way for whatever reason it’s difficult to move through life without our poison’s influence, not just consuming creative things but continuously engaging in the process of creation, it’s something that comes really innately while at the same time being a little impossible, so what makes it hard? well…… where to begin? the requirement of vulnerability for one. it’s very scary !the act of creation is rife with uncertainty and doubts at every turn writing especially being such a solitary activity it’s incredibly easy to find yourself in self-propelled thought spirals based around your supposed badness without anyone there to argue to the contrary. miyazaki said he can feel it every day, the limit of his ability and he was talking about getting older but i think that’s something a lot of us have experienced personally, i can feel myself straining against the limit of my ability as though it were a brick fucking wall and my true potential whatever the hell that is! It’s some amorphous shape, on the other side that i can’t quite reach, also when you make something, it’s hard to feel as though you are not that thing and when i go through moments of despair about what i make, it feels like i’m despairing about myself and that to put it lightly, feels bad and separately given. the ideal job allegedly lies in the intersection of opportunity, talent and passion or whatever the faux motivational capitalist aphorisms are these days!if you enjoy something creative, the usual leap in logic is, `oh i should figure out how to make money from this` now before i say anything ,i must first state that i am so lucky to do what i do but with anything there arises qualms!
it’s a bit upsetting sometimes ,to think about the monetization of something that was once rooted in the innocent pursuit of expression it’s upsetting to have to create constraints on what you do in the interest of marketability or commercial appeal or satisfying trends it’s upsetting to be interested in so many variations of that expression but for it to be unwise likely to seek them all out, firstly because you just don’t have enough time but secondly to create consistency within your body of work which again has to do with saleability ,maybe limiting yourself to one genre for example and apart from that ,being creative is hard! creativity on demand is even harder ,there’s pressure to meet deadlines and to have an endless stream of good ideas with no down time also social media , not even mentioning the face fetishist that is the algorithm and people’s interest aka you haven’t posted a selfie ,oh sorry! try again buddy, what you’re like living your life or working on something that’ll take years to finish
oh well fuck you anyway and given all of that, of course there are outliers but for the vast majority there’s not even that much money in it and it’s obscene!.. the amount of people doing exactly what you do and they might be doing it better or maybe you don’t feel that way and if so, i envy you and i prepared to think that i am perhaps a little bit pathetic ,i fear i lack the sort of helpful if bullheaded confidence or uncontaminated optimism that when i make something that thing is new or different or vital because i have a tendency towards what we can call cynical realism and like of course it’s not when you look at the sheer quantity of things being made, it’s hard to think of any of it as anything besides void filler ,it’s packing peanuts, even the things that are culturally revered. our most loved pieces of work in a modern sense, like you only know it exists because of its marketing budget and a really common little encouragement is just to focus on the work and the rest will take care of itself but it’s a complete lie !to say, something will garner attention just by virtue of its existence make something good and it’ll just sort of ascend up into a beam of glorious light where on the other sides it’s a panel of drooling netflix executives i guess…,
it’s not true! the attention economy is brutal, making things is like deciding to spend your life playing a rigged demented slot machine except , instead of quarter, you’re gambling everything that’s ever made you feel something and your childhood trauma !
So is there a point to any of it?
I truly don’t mean to deter you from anything!, by the way , if you are new to the space then this will all come back around, eventually you just gotta hang on , if i could stop being a pessimist for two fucking seconds , i would tell you that i do think that is merit to the line of thought that acknowledges the value and the novelty of individual experiences , nobody has the exact same collection of experiences as you which means nobody will make the exact same set of connections as you which means , your work has worth or is at the very least novel by the virtue of it’s birth in your mind specifically,one of the chance synapse traps that make up humanity , i also have an inkling that specific discomfort will ease as i get older i think i’ll feel more sound when i get older, i think i’ll feel more sound when i believe in what i’ve made more as a product of my experience and practice and work rather that the fruit of some so called innate ability, anyway , it’s rare for artists with lifetime careers to have produced their best work in their 20s so i have time? And i’m technically not even halfway through those , i know…..! Odd given i have the disposition of an 18th century drug addict basement mad scientist! But along with this , i do also hate unearned confidence , i think it’s so ugly but i often take too wide a step in the other direction to avoid disappointment or embarrassment i guess! Which isn’t any better mind you! It’s called the dunning krueger effect, that looks like this but a lot of the time i end up with a really negatively skewed image of my work, i still struggle in passing to say that it slaps because i don’t know ! Does it? Who’s to say ? ME!
NO, i’m pretty sure it doesn’t even matter what i think about it at all, at the end of the day and i just want to write ! I don’t want to be a salesperson even worse! When i feel like the thing i’m selling is me, so saying that and given all of this how can i measure or reaffirm the importance or necessity of what i do in a way , that’s healthy and good , what aside from the inescapable personal pull i feel towards it , is supposed to motivate me enough to keep me shoving that fucking boulder in the eyes of the masses .
Well! Firstly to quote the great and illustrious watsky, !!please.. i would not have spent a decade doing this if i did not believe i was at least a tiny bit ridiculously filthy at it!! and yeah, there’s no greater feeling that when you just get it or when someone gets you ! Generally , i place the opinions of my peers in incredibly high regard, sometimes everything i make just feels like an elaborate scheme to get the people close to me , to tell me good job! We could perhaps just end the blog here. I truly have zero desire for any sort of fame or public adoration as a symbol of approval it’s certainly an unfortunate side effect of what i want to do , but i do just genuinely want the people i love to think i’m really cool but i also want to make something…! I don’t know ..I guess important but what makes things important? I’m struggling to figure it out , i also don’t know why i want to make something important! If i don’t even know , is it the number of people reached ? Is it the strength of the impact on those people ? Is it how much it inspired people or subsequent importance of the world , i think important if they change people and not just entertain them or is pure entertainment just as important? in the midst of all this is comfort in itself or is my inclusion of people even right? and does work value exist outside of how people perceive it but is it work that’s political or it speaks to a culture moment prizes , it’s one! but if prizes are just the same incestuous academic spirit stick passed around year after year , is there anything i feel ?
You sitting there hating me and i know it’s impossible to quantify! but the most important work is anything that is made even one person not want to die. Do you think it matters? Does this matter? Am i trying hard enough ? Does that matter? Is it how hard i try and use all my creative ability to create pieces ? When it’s the last time someone picks up my pieces of not so memorable struggle, unforgettable? Is it all just DON”T FORGET ME ! DON”T FORGET ME !DON”T FORGET ME !DON”T FORGET ME !DON”T FORGET ME !DON”T FORGET ME !????
You know when it’s like that? A lot of the fear comes from uncertainty and a lack of control and a worry at least for me is about being misunderstood somehow and although as i said , it’s not exactly transcendentally useful advice !it does help to focus on the work instead of the unknowns ,i’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of making things deliberately, making sure in every element’s inclusion and every words inclusion, there was an active decision that occurred ! I’m also trying to get better at understanding my art as if i’m someone who’s witnessing it for the first time, i don’t know if anyone’s ever embroidered but the front of an embroidery is really nice and clean and at the back it’s ofcourse all the knots and the mess and the mistakes and when i look at what i do , i struggle to see anything besides that , only the cogs turning in my head and what i was trying to do and because of that i think i end up missing both ! Some of my own weaknesses and strengths , i’m also trying to have more answers . I tend to ask a lot of questions which i think reflects me as a person. I wonder things all day long in trains of thought which are concluded only by a spirited return to the beginning to ride them all over again! I try to avoid the acidic aftertaste of an unrelenting dooom funnel .
i don’t really want to be someone who burns really bright, really quick! anyway, i want time to think! i want to move slowly.
i’m a little afraid of aging which is a whole other thing but this is like one of the major things that makes me so excited for it, i want to get better! i want to think better ! i want to know more! i want to see what i make with more time and i don’t know when we’ll start burning the books but i feel like this will be around for a while in some form anyway or even if it’s not the way i hope to make people feel or the way you’ve made people feel or have felt it’ll all likely in largely invisible ways stick around, i think that’s probably true i think there will be something left to remember, that we were here! doing this !telling each other stories while the light died and i do want to make everything good but i also just want to make it you know?
ephemeralchemex 