When it all recedes

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.

Fear Response

I liked all of our fear projects. I believe it made us all seem more human and normal. We all have our own little issues that we deal with. Most of us had ones that could coincide with one another. I was surprised to hear how people thought of my own design as something holding up failure. It surprises me because I'll be honest, I use it as a crutch. I use my fear as a reason not to do something or go with with tasks. I know I use it as a crutch and it pisses me off. I'm very self aware of my fear and how it impacts my life. I know when it's happening and how it causes problems, but I don't ever seem to do anything about it. I let it control every thing I do. When I don't want to do something, I use my fear as a reason to get out of it. People saw that in my design, and I didn't even mean for that to be that way. I did what fell natural to me, and people figured out something about me from it without even knowing it. Something I didn't intentionally mean to show. It's odd how our creative side, when you give yourself over to it, actually tells the stories we didn't mean to tell. It lets people in when you don't intend for them to be let in. It's speaks the words that we fail to say.

Altered State

For my altered book, I decided to go through without a plan of any kind. I just knew that if I tried doing something right, it'd end up wrong. I'm usually unsatisfied with the things I create and this I knew would be no exception. So, instead, I went through and thought about things throughout my day, week, year, etc and just did whatever came to mind. I also burnt some of the pages and mixed the ashes with charcoal to draw with. I used some of the white meringue cookie chalk that I did in the senses project. I edited a photo of myself to represent my Who Am I project. And obviously, I used the photos I made for the assignments that had one. I also painted the book gold, just because. I also drew pictures and represented the assignments we did in class similar to how we did the fear assignment. I associated each one with a color and found that color in the book and worked on that particular section.

I enjoyed doing my book. My wrote inside the pages that were stapled shut little things I didn't want people to see. I kind of took the deep dark secret thing that other students had to do (I didn't have to) and did it myself. I wrote how my fear impacts me and tarnishes my goals. I wrote little sayings and thoughts I had during the past few months. Things that I don't think would have much meaning to anyone other than myself. 

Push

It was weird how quickly most of us cringed at the idea that a fellow student did. She had made up a survey and had people answer it. That's terrifying in and of itself. I think people are more critical and open when they can be anonymous, like she had for her survey. A lot of us wouldn't have the courage to do what she did for this assignment.

Always the Bad Guy

First off, one thing that got me thinking was the fact that most people got talkative when people discussed the roles they like to take in games. Some liked being the good guys, others liked being the bad guys, others blurred the lines. If I play video games, I'm usually the bad guy. Not because I think myself as a bad person or living vicariously through a game, but because they always seem to have more fun. The heroes I feel always have restrictions and guides to follow. Their morals, no matter how set in stone they are, are always questionable. They just seem like deep down, they're probably a little miserable and have a little bad guy waiting to crack out. I rarely play video games though, so I'm not authority on what roles in games are actually like. It was just surprising how the talk of a game and issues playing a role got everyone off on their own little tangents.

Next, I was surprised to see how my project got people talking as well. I figured it'd be similar to the other people who spoke about failure. It'd be a few people just giving some sound advice and it'd be done. However, some where along the way people kept chiming in with words of wisdom and I was like "the hell?" Don't get me wrong, I appreciated it, I was just surprised at the response. I wasn't expecting it. I was also a little surprised people liked and what they saw in my project. I personally felt like it was minimal at best. I didn't think much about it, I just did it, and a lot of people saw some underlying themes in it I had no idea were there. They saw the things I didn't see. Just strange how that can work in a room of people that I think don't know me yet by looking at one little project I did seemed to know me a decent amount.

 

Glass

I'd say the most interesting thing about class and learning about our fears thus far is that a lot of us have similar fears, and deal with them in the same way. I haven't gone yet, but I can say most of the things I could say and how I react to them and handle them has already been said. Most notably with two classmates who talked about how their fears cause them to fall back and not do their art work for fear of either failing at it (like me) or fear of it being judged (for me as well, because I'd consider that a failure). In both cases the students talked about how this fear gets so immense inside of them that they just shut off and hide, which is similar to what I do. If I get to that point, I shut off and take a nap. Which may be saying something because I'm always napping, but who knows. It was just enlightening to hear other students have issues that cause problems with them similar to my own and then hearing people talk about how they would fix it or change it.

Fail

My biggest fear in life is failure. I have a really big guard up around myself to make sure I limit my chances of failure. I can't 100% say what caused it, though.

After reading all the definitions of our four choices, I would honestly say it might be a anxiety, but lends itself more towards a phobia. At first, I was pretty sure it was an anxiety. When I read about anxiety it talked about fast heart beats, sweaty palms, head aches, nail biting, gum biting, and in some cases even panic attacks. I've experienced all of those in situations, and sometimes some at the same time. However, after reading about phobia, I think it may be closer to that. Phobia in and of itself is anxiety. So, either which way you slice it, I have anxiety. The reason I believe it to be more of phobia is biggest I learned that in cases of phobia, the person typically does everything they can to avoid the situations or how much it bothers you. Anxieties, from my understanding, only last the length of the time it is happening (example, like they said about the elevator. Anxiety of it happens while you're on the elevator, but goes away after you get off). But for phobia, it can hinder you minutes, hours, even days before, which in my case has happened. If I know I'm going into a situation where I can possibly be considered a failure, it haunts me for days. I can't sleep. I have troubles eating. I usually have headaches leading up to the problem. Then it really kicks in while I'm in the situation. When I know this can happen, I avoid it like the plague. I'll do anything I can to not have to be confronted with the prospect of failure. This includes failure in all it's forms, from career, to jobs, to homework, or even what other people think of me. If someone dislikes me, even though to a point I don't care because I don't know them, it still will make me have anxiety because I consider it a failure in my mind. It usually affects me in school or social situations. Speech class freaked the shit out of me. However, presenting in general freaks me out. I hate having to talk in front of people. It also creates issues with showing my work. The possibility of people seeing my work and then criticizing it bothers me too. I literally one time in high school told my teacher I didn't want to show the class my project and she said "present or take an F." I took the F. On the flip side, everyone can tell me it's the best thing they have ever seen and I would tell myself they're lying as to not hurt my feelings. It's a double edged sword. I usually wont present my stuff or let anyone see it. I wont apply for jobs for the fact of being rejected, which is a failure. I never think what I do is good enough or worth while. On scales of 1 to 10, I will usually rate my own stuff between 1 and 3. I will also usually avoid tasks that will eventually lead me to the possibility of failure. If I'm working on something, I'll usually find something "more appealing" or that I "have to do right now" so that I don't have to finish and have the chances of failure for it as well. I will usually create something and then fall short and know that it's a failure, so that I'm already prepared for it being a failure.