This is my manual translation of a post I earlier wrote in Swedish. It is the first one of this ”Learn Swedish” corner, but if you want to see more of this, click on the category or tag to find more posts in English.
Now that it is dusk, I departed for an odyssey in my SO’s Facebook log. I guess I was going to try to evaluate whether he has become a better or worse SO over the years that passed. Hehe. I don’t only over-analyze my own abilities, I also find the time to put grades on the abilities of others! Sometimes the Hitler-alter ego sniffs around in absolute public. However, I did not recieve an answer that made sense, as to whether the quality of my SO has gone up or down, but I noticed that he previously had spent a whole lot more time on being creative for his own sake, compared to today. I mean an extreme amount of difference in time, maybe 300 %. I thought that was enticing – we are going to research this more! What is it that makes one ignore creating things, even though one seems to have been made to create? Why does our art die a slow, painful death of neglect? Why haven’t I myself created anything for a very long time?
Wherever you look in the world of culture, you can find old artists telling stories about how their parents thought they ”should get a real job instead”. At the same time, there are expressions like ”suffer for the art”, meaning that if one has suffered, one has great potential to create art, or the other way around: if one creates art, one has to suffer a little to get it out of oneself. It is hard work to create art, but it is also fun. That is something that does not entirely add up in our heads, I think.
If I remember it correctly, my natural preferences for the choice of high school education were not quite the same as the programs that my mom convinced me to pick.
I think I wanted to study:
- First-hand choice: the aesthetic program, focus on drama
- Second-hand choice: the media and design program
- Third-hand choice: the social sciences program, focus on culture
However, I think it turned out like this:
- First-hand choice: the social sciences program, focus on history and culture
- Second-hand choice: the media and design program
- Third-hand choice: the social sciences program, focus on politics
So, my acting carreer died like crazy right then and there, even though I got myself some hours of ”aesthetical activity”, that did a lot of good to my self-esteem. 😉 Luckily, you need to write a whole lot while studying the social sciences, so I was well prepared when I continued to an education in information design.
Nevertheless, it was pretty embarrassing that I did not know how to use a Mac. I thought so as early as when I made the choice of a high school-program, when a teacher’s comment to another potential student visiting the school deterred me so badly that I fled to the social sciences students with my fist clenched in my pocket.
”You have an Apple? You are going to be my favourite!”
We hardly had a computer at all.
🙁
Speaking of computers, in that Facebook log that we started out with, I also discovered things about myself: I had not used my camera in four years. The last time I was out and about taking photos in the name of creativity, was September, 2016. In October 2016, I found out that my dad had DIED, probably the same weekend that I was out with the camera having general anxiety over him. I let my hair grow out from the bold page haircut that I had gotten when I decided to become a tech writer. I stopped taking photos, stopped creating Youtube videos and stopped painting my nails. I moved. Changed jobs. I spend my time on video games and socializing with colleagues.
The question is if I stopped doing things I like, as a part of grief, or if I stopped doing things I don’t like, because I realized that life has an end to it. When it comes to nails and hair, I belive in the latter, but the other two hobbies are more complicated.
I connect photography with the last time I pushed that button and heard that satisfying click. With the day that I felt guilty because I was spending my energy on photography instead of helping my day. I know that if I would have chosen dad it would have meant that all energy would have been spent on him, and that it probably would have made him feel totally disgraced and would not have made him the least bit healthier. I know that, but it is difficult to get rid of emotions using logic.
The Youtube channel felt rewarding since it gave me the opportunity to paradoxically be myself through playing a part, but the commenting fields made me aware of and despising my own need of validation. I also did not like the demanding tone a lot of people had in the comments. My unpaid hobby meant that I gave and gave and gave, while the viewers only took and wanted to change me. I just wanted to explore, not deliver. Not suffer for the art – because art is only fun, right? It was too much work to put make up on and then read reckless comments. It wasn’t worth it.
I think this will work out a lot better! Blogging! Text is my medium and I know how to handle possible criticism of it. Thoughts in text-form, likewise: the content itself. The preparations for publishing text fit my ways a lot better than the preparations for filming a video. To summarize, my answer to why I haven’t created anything for a long time is: traumas and insecurity of the ego. Now you should go and watch Kiki’s Delivery Service! It is the world’s best movie on that subject!
