Welcome to my first blog post of 2024! It’s been a long time coming. I’ve been managing this website for over seven years now, through several rebrands, concepts, portfolios, blog posts, and relationships with the self. I’ve wiped everything to start over as I’ve come closer to grasping my place in the world as a person as well as a designer.
I feel many of us (creatives, at least) fall prey to the concept of “this year I’ll revise my portfolio”–only to change the colors, maybe even the typography, and call it a year. Overall it’s been hard to create on the outside when working in a more corporate background, and with so much more happening in my life since I’ve sworn off being a workaholic. No more forcing a 365-once-a-day logo sketch project, managing Etsy orders, manning booths at events, every single weekend, forever. I started putting a lot more stock into my quote-unquote REAL life versus turning everything into a capitalist game of minesweeper.
Occasionally I feel that fear of being unproductive. The concept of regression when there is peace. If nothing is happening, something must of course be wrong. Where are the deadlines, the impending disappointment? How can I move forward if nothing is trying to push me backward?
Ultimately–how do I motivate myself through positives instead of negatives? What can compel me to create when there are no negative consequences against it? Do I even NEED to create anymore?
Quite clearly, the answer is yes. I’m here now, writing, albeit two months after I said I would. But I’m a lot earlier than never. My hobbies are many and my goals are in excess but I’ve got to start somewhere. There’s a little bit of beauty hidden in all this, I think.
I had a grand refresh in 2023 with the 3 months I spent traveling westward. There’s something about being alone in a desert or spending your birthday solo at Disneyland that can change your perspective on a lot of things. Your who-what-when-where-how. I hope to make a lot more low fidelity but high emotional quality film here and there. Despite my constant desire for solitude there’s something fantastic about sharing your perspective just from a bunch of mumbled video. That’s that hidden beauty, I think.
Anyway, that’s all for today. Something more fruitful this way comes.
Happy 2024.