When I was first told to take this class and I had first read through the syllabus, my first thought was "what the hell?" I pretty much gathered I had signed up and paid for a class that is making me goof off. It seemed counterproductive to what college is supposed to be. College was supposed to eat my money, put me in debt, and give me some reason for a job once I graduated. This class wasn't any of those things. It took my money, but didn't follow anything that college was meant to be.
This class really helped me stop and think about myself. Something that most people would find selfish. And it is. But sometimes we have to be selfish.
I never really realized before this class how out of touch I was becoming with my own creative identity. How before when it fueled my soul, it now just gets me by. It's something I do to make money and not to enjoy. I'm a mindless drone doing exactly what the powers that be program me to be. No matter how free we believe we are, we're actually not free at all. It's a made up, society accepted manufacture of freedom. Everything you once knew gets stripped away as you get older. This class showed me to feed that part of myself once again. To draw because I fucking wanted to. To stop and give no shits about anyone else because I can. To be okay with the stuff I create because I enjoyed what I created, no matter how it looked.
The class was liberating as much as it was terrifying. I realized as well as the above how much control I actually lost. I thought I was always in control. That sure, they set guides, but I can break or cross them when I choose to. But when given total freedom from this class, I froze. I realized that those guides that I thought I was outsmarting were outsmarting me. They told me what to do, no matter how much I believed they didn't. I created for them which is what they wanted all along. I forgot what it was like to create for shear enjoyment. In a weird way, I lost recognition of myself. I was given assignments asking about the person I should know pretty damn well, myself, and couldn't even answer the questions I was given. I lost my sense of self exploration, adventure, being, awareness. I gave it all up to become what society wants, and I didn't even mean to. It all just happened. Unconsciously, I'm following a path that was designed for me, rather than designed by me.
However, I'm learning to recognize when these problems are facing me. I make time to do what I want to do. I look at assignments, and as long as I did what I could and tried, I don't care what any professor tells me. I shouldn't have to have my creative worked judged because someone thinks they have the right to. I create because I want to. If you don't care for it, that's not my problem. If I was to give a shit about every negative thing that a person could say, I wouldn't get out of bed in the morning. I've learned to put myself first and foremost. To allow myself the chances to create for personal fulfillment because I deserve it.
As this class and semester comes to a close, I'm allowing myself to go with the flow. Something I always thought I did, but didn't really. I'm allowing chance and spontaneous moments to happen. I'm taking control of myself. I may be a small fish in a big pond and go with the flow, but no one said I couldn't enjoy the swim.
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