Head, Heart, Hand.
Jun. 19th, 2007 12:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chanticoI firmly believe in the power of the human mind over matter, particularly our own fleshy bits. Unfortunatly, without massive psychic powers, there are some things insidious enough to slip past our notice until its too late to change them.
I'm worried right now that I've found myself in a distressing position of having something like that happen with my body, and what's being affected isn't something I can just live and deal with, unpleasent or no-- I think I might have fucked up my brain, or at least the way I think, and I don't know how to, or even if I can, repair it.
The headspace I live in these days is so vastly different from the one I occupied just four years ago that the innerscape!Avery of freshman year wouldn't even recognize the innerscape!Avery now. There would be maps required. Complicated ones. With topographies included. My social intelligence has taken the pilot seat from the introspective (and the lonely), and verbal thinking/communication has been replaced by increasing visual intelligence. In short- I've switched form being someone who was a left and right brain thinker into being heavily right-brained . . . and my left-brain has suffered for it, to the point that I an noticing a marked decrease in my ability to access skillsets that I used to have very highly developed, and other right-brained activites have become increasingly difficult. One such thing easily recognizable by anyone that's had to create an 'Avery's Stuff' box at their place is my memory. Believe it or not, while I was always absent minded, I was *never* as bad as I am now. More frightening, it's not getting better ta all-- it's getting worse. Two years ago, i might leave my phone lost somewhere in your couch-- but I would never have to check *more* than three times whether I had my keys before I left the house . . . within the span of two minutes. I would forget my homework assignment or where I left my glasses, but not the beginning of a thought once I reached the middle. I think *that * is the scariest example. I'll begin thinking about something and seconds later have no idea why this word or image was in my head, the motivations behind it's existence and even the thing itself quickly fading into a soup of mental blather. That . . . really sucks. A lot.
Likewise, my verbal acuity has gone the way of the All Your Base meme. While I was never a potent public speaker due to social anxiety, my word recall was much faster and more accurate, my vocabulary ten times the size it is now . I was once clever-- I know, shock and damnation-- high schoool clever, of course, and never when put on the spot . . . but words were things I loved and held tight to. they were my magic and my power.
The last victims and the most badly wounded are my attention span and my discipline. I thought college would help-- I've never been the most disciplined individual. I expected the extra structure of, you know, actually having to turn in homework would be beneficial. The problem, unfortunatly, isn't something external, and I'll never learn if I keep expecting it to be. *I* sabotage myself constantly, and this problem has gone head over heels backwards over the cliff of procrastination and internet addiction . . . even though this is a time when it needs to be more Sigourney Weaver, less Paris Hilton. I should be kicking ass, not indulging myself in fantasies of improvement without actively pursuing it. I'm a smart girl. If I had not fucked around, I could have had a near 4.0. If I was doing anything that broadened myself in other ways, I'd be a lot more forgiving, but mostly I just futzed around on the net.
That's really the disturbing part. I worry superficially about something being physically wrong with my brain-- and it might be, don't get me wrong-- but I think the real issue is I'm out of practice thinking in the same ways I used to. I don't want to lose the social awareness I've gained, or the deeper spiritual connection to everything I now feel, but I *need* my left-brain back.
That lack of discipline is what is keeping my from being able to call myself anything more than an amateur artist. To be an artist, a professional, you have to, you know, *create art*, and I don't produce *nearly* enough. Without that practice, I will never have the skill to be where I want to be, and without the discipline, there's no way I can contract myself out professionally.
Even then, discipline and skill only can take you so far in the creative world. Here's the truth of the matter, and one I need to recognize and remind myself of daily: my art, while increasingly technically proficient, is empty. It has no soul. The beauty and emotional connection that should form an empathic bond with the viewer and make it more than a picture is not there. It might look, cool, but it can't touch . . . and without the touch, my portfolio will never stand out from the hundreds others, my paintings and drawings will never sell.
One the other hand, sometimes I will manage to produce something that *is* quite emotionally resonant, but the craft is crap. I can't seem to unify the two-- I'll get an idea and snapshot in my head, then overwork it until I've wrung all the life out of it; I'll have inspiration and emotion, but no clear image will come to mind and what manages to come out is mud . . . if either of those get out at *all* because I get distracted and forget. I flip back and forth between modes of thought like a hyper child flicking a light switch, when what I need is a damn dimming knob.
Maybe this has to do with my diet and hideous lack of proper nutrition. I don't doubt it. But I also think that a lack of activites that challenge both parts of my brain has conributed.
Just wish I knew what sort of stuff to do to get back on track.
I'm worried right now that I've found myself in a distressing position of having something like that happen with my body, and what's being affected isn't something I can just live and deal with, unpleasent or no-- I think I might have fucked up my brain, or at least the way I think, and I don't know how to, or even if I can, repair it.
The headspace I live in these days is so vastly different from the one I occupied just four years ago that the innerscape!Avery of freshman year wouldn't even recognize the innerscape!Avery now. There would be maps required. Complicated ones. With topographies included. My social intelligence has taken the pilot seat from the introspective (and the lonely), and verbal thinking/communication has been replaced by increasing visual intelligence. In short- I've switched form being someone who was a left and right brain thinker into being heavily right-brained . . . and my left-brain has suffered for it, to the point that I an noticing a marked decrease in my ability to access skillsets that I used to have very highly developed, and other right-brained activites have become increasingly difficult. One such thing easily recognizable by anyone that's had to create an 'Avery's Stuff' box at their place is my memory. Believe it or not, while I was always absent minded, I was *never* as bad as I am now. More frightening, it's not getting better ta all-- it's getting worse. Two years ago, i might leave my phone lost somewhere in your couch-- but I would never have to check *more* than three times whether I had my keys before I left the house . . . within the span of two minutes. I would forget my homework assignment or where I left my glasses, but not the beginning of a thought once I reached the middle. I think *that * is the scariest example. I'll begin thinking about something and seconds later have no idea why this word or image was in my head, the motivations behind it's existence and even the thing itself quickly fading into a soup of mental blather. That . . . really sucks. A lot.
Likewise, my verbal acuity has gone the way of the All Your Base meme. While I was never a potent public speaker due to social anxiety, my word recall was much faster and more accurate, my vocabulary ten times the size it is now . I was once clever-- I know, shock and damnation-- high schoool clever, of course, and never when put on the spot . . . but words were things I loved and held tight to. they were my magic and my power.
The last victims and the most badly wounded are my attention span and my discipline. I thought college would help-- I've never been the most disciplined individual. I expected the extra structure of, you know, actually having to turn in homework would be beneficial. The problem, unfortunatly, isn't something external, and I'll never learn if I keep expecting it to be. *I* sabotage myself constantly, and this problem has gone head over heels backwards over the cliff of procrastination and internet addiction . . . even though this is a time when it needs to be more Sigourney Weaver, less Paris Hilton. I should be kicking ass, not indulging myself in fantasies of improvement without actively pursuing it. I'm a smart girl. If I had not fucked around, I could have had a near 4.0. If I was doing anything that broadened myself in other ways, I'd be a lot more forgiving, but mostly I just futzed around on the net.
That's really the disturbing part. I worry superficially about something being physically wrong with my brain-- and it might be, don't get me wrong-- but I think the real issue is I'm out of practice thinking in the same ways I used to. I don't want to lose the social awareness I've gained, or the deeper spiritual connection to everything I now feel, but I *need* my left-brain back.
That lack of discipline is what is keeping my from being able to call myself anything more than an amateur artist. To be an artist, a professional, you have to, you know, *create art*, and I don't produce *nearly* enough. Without that practice, I will never have the skill to be where I want to be, and without the discipline, there's no way I can contract myself out professionally.
Even then, discipline and skill only can take you so far in the creative world. Here's the truth of the matter, and one I need to recognize and remind myself of daily: my art, while increasingly technically proficient, is empty. It has no soul. The beauty and emotional connection that should form an empathic bond with the viewer and make it more than a picture is not there. It might look, cool, but it can't touch . . . and without the touch, my portfolio will never stand out from the hundreds others, my paintings and drawings will never sell.
One the other hand, sometimes I will manage to produce something that *is* quite emotionally resonant, but the craft is crap. I can't seem to unify the two-- I'll get an idea and snapshot in my head, then overwork it until I've wrung all the life out of it; I'll have inspiration and emotion, but no clear image will come to mind and what manages to come out is mud . . . if either of those get out at *all* because I get distracted and forget. I flip back and forth between modes of thought like a hyper child flicking a light switch, when what I need is a damn dimming knob.
Maybe this has to do with my diet and hideous lack of proper nutrition. I don't doubt it. But I also think that a lack of activites that challenge both parts of my brain has conributed.
Just wish I knew what sort of stuff to do to get back on track.
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Nitpicking so your friends don't have to
Date: 2007-06-19 05:43 am (UTC)My sympathy on the actual problems. Might try memory games to see if that helps memory; otherwise I got no ideas, and don't think I know you well enough to try to be reassuring. Good luck.
Re: Nitpicking so your friends don't have to
Date: 2007-06-19 02:40 pm (UTC)Re: Nitpicking so your friends don't have to
Date: 2007-06-19 03:05 pm (UTC)Were you part of the Oracle Card crew? If I wrote something up for Carter, could I still get in on things?
Re: Nitpicking so your friends don't have to
Date: 2007-06-19 03:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-19 11:06 am (UTC)As to another thing...how are you judging whether your artwork has a soul or not? Thing is, I'm not sure it's within the power of the creator to judge that, it has to be in the eyes of the viewer. And not ever work will touch everyone, anyway - just go to an art museum with someone with different taste from you and you'll notice that immediately. :) I'm not saying don't work on this aspect, but I thought I'd point out that you might want to find out from others how much soul your work has, rather than condemning your own work.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-19 03:17 pm (UTC)1) Claire's right. You're not in the best position to judge whether or not your art is affecting anybody on a deeper level. Because you are not its audience.
2) Not everything you produce will be a heartbreaking work of staggering genius. Some of it will just be pretty. If you want to make a career out of this, you're going to need the pretty stuff as well as the amazing stuff, because nobody can produce heartbreaking works of staggering genius at a good enough clip to keep themselves in ramen noodles.
3) and without the touch, my portfolio will never stand out from the hundreds others, my paintings and drawings will never sell. You know what? Now's when I pull out the blunt instrument. YOUR PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS WILL NEVER SELL BECAUSE YOU NEVER PUT THEM OUT THERE. If you spend a year trying to sell your work and failing, then, maybe, I will allow you the luxury of passing this judgment and deciding the problem is a failure with your art. But right now? You don't know if they're going to sell, because you haven't tried. So you don't even know if you're a failure. You might be; you might not. But the only way to find that out is to get some actual concrete data that came from somewhere other than your own neuroses and insecurities. In other words, let other people judge your work. People who aren't your friends (since you already know what we think of your art). But I'm hitting the point where if I hear you pass some judgment like this on yourself one more time without having actually tested yourself in a real-world situation, I am going to smack you.
4) As far as discipline goes, I talked with Jennie about this the other night, and would be more than happy to talk to you somewhere other than LJ comments. Short form: the trick is to figure out what your best working habits are, and then learn to stick to them. You might do best during the afternoon, or late at night, or at five o'clock in the morning. Maybe you need to do yoga before you start, or eat a peanut-butter sandwich because peanut butter tastes like inspiration, or do nothing for a week and then spend an entire twenty-four hour period running on caffeine and paint fumes. Discipline takes a lot of weird forms, among the writers I know, but one thing tends to be universal; they have to find the one that works for them, which may not be what they expect. I doubt it's any different for artists.
ahem
Date: 2007-06-19 03:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-19 05:09 pm (UTC)Also, I'd toss in, remember that no one is disciplined all the time. You have to have it be okay sometimes to just NOT worry - otherwise, you start to go crazy and it's worse in the end, because you'll take, say a day for yourself, and next thing you know you'll spend the whole day going "but I should be doing this, and I should be doing that, and OMG where are my keys?" Sometimes, you gotta let up on yourself.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-19 04:37 pm (UTC)girl, some of us get more absent minded as we get older. Or get more stressed. Or just have other things on our mind. If you're checking *if* you have your keys (as opposed to say, putting your keys down in a different place every 30 seconds and forgetting where they are - that's my trick) - then it sounds like you're suffering a lot of anxiety. Even if you're not conscious of it, your brain is worried. And it sounds like you're doing a lot of negative thinking, which is going to make the issue worse.
It's *particularly* going to get worse if you interrupt your own thoughts to wonder wheher you can remember how you got here and then panic when you can't. Remember, your brain is wired to go down connected neural paths. If you're connecting "recollection" with "fear," then every time you try to remember something your brain is going to helpfully reach for the "omigod I'm forgetting stuff" package. It's going to reach for that *instead* of the thing you're trying to remember.
You may want to talk to a counselor about your worries - because it does sound like you're anxious and that the anxiety is interfering with your life. It seems to be interfering at all levels, because as Bryn has already pointed out, you are a fabulous artist and your problem isn't production, it's sending things out.
As for procrastination - we all procrastinate. We all wish we had more discipline. Yeah, work habits help, but most of us don't adopt good work habits when we're constantly worrying that what we're trying to do won't be good enough. It's easier to put something off and distract yourself then force yourself to do something you deep down feel will turn out to be a failure.
(Thus speaks the dissertation writer. Can you tell I've been procrastinating?)
Anyway, this may not apply at all. But some of it might. I definitely think your worries are contributing to the problems you worry about.
*hugs*
no subject
Date: 2007-06-19 07:52 pm (UTC)Your art
Date: 2007-11-10 07:40 pm (UTC)I must say I'm also wildly jealous of you! To be backpacking around Europe with nary a care in the world! Wow! Have a splendid time!
Love, Suzanne Studer
suziselt@earthlink.net