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Nov 11: Something to Watch if You're Upset Over the Election
Posted 9 years agoI don't think I have anything relevant to add to what this man says, pretty much everything he says I agree with 100%, especially the last couple minutes of it. I already knew most of it, it's just very cathartic to hear someone else say it.
Nov 09: An Outsider's Perspective on US Politics
Posted 9 years ago█ I live in Canadia Land, so I certainly didn't feel it was my place to offer my opinion on the American election before it took place, so I'm doing it after the fact. Politics is one of the three social landmines (the others being sex and religion) and I certainly didn't want engage in the vitriol that would inevitably happen if I did express any opinion towards it. Heck, there's a good chance that it'll happen with this journal despite it being after the fact.
For me I like being objective, and I do my best to park my emotions at the door when thinking on emotionally charged issues (not that I'm always successful mind you, I'm still just human); and I enjoy deconstructing complicated things, because I do want to know why things happen: The why things tick.
Which of course leads me to why things happened the way they did, and what the bigger picture was. So what's the bigger picture? One big chunk is the approval rating of congress which usually is less than 10%, this is a big sign of how much the government is failing people, and of how much people utterly despise the establishment. I don't think people realize what an abysmal number that is, nor what the consequences of that number are either. (Though I suppose it maybe hitting some people squarely in the face now).
Another chunk is around 50% of Americans are poor or in poverty, and they don't see things getting better. You hear news of how the economy has recovered, but that hasn't benefited normal people at all. Many people are stuck with minimum-wage jobs if they're lucky, others have to work in multiple part-time jobs, and others don't have a job at all; and this situation is just getting worse and worse.
Yet another chunk of this picture is that around 67% of Americans do not trust the media. What people see is all filtered and in coded language. Instead of direct language everything is euphemisms and half-truths, if not straight up lies. Additionally this also means that the average person does not have a voice. The media also has been a huge failure at giving the average person a voice. This can be seen with how Occupy Wallstreet was handled as an example, or hell the Standing Rock protests currently happening.
This is the big picture: You have a country who's citizens are struggling to make ends meet, who do not have a voice in the government, and who have media that is utterly failing them. This reality has shaped American politics for at least the past decade.
Will the President of the USA change any of those elements of the big picture for the better? What President in recent US history has? In the past 16 years the USA had two very different Presidents, but did anything improve for the average person? As far as I can tell: Nothing did, and really things appear to be progressively getting worse and worse each year that passes. It's not to say that there haven't been some victories: Marijuana is getting closer and closer to being legalized, and equality of rights is still progressing forward; but everything else? Doesn't look like it.
Perhaps the most unfortunate thing of all is that there's a good chance that the American people will turn against themselves rather than stand up to the government that is failing them on so many levels, and will continue to fail them for the foreseeable future. The outrage or the jubilation people are experiencing from the outcome of this election in the end only serves to distract from the underlying problems: Just as it has done every election in the past.
Your government is horribly corrupt, and it doesn't matter what political stripe you wear; you know who's doing the corrupting, and it's certainly not the minorities.
█ I might regret posting this journal, but I'm willing to accept the consequences of it. Though who knew that the Cubs winning really was a sign of the apocalypse!
For me I like being objective, and I do my best to park my emotions at the door when thinking on emotionally charged issues (not that I'm always successful mind you, I'm still just human); and I enjoy deconstructing complicated things, because I do want to know why things happen: The why things tick.
Which of course leads me to why things happened the way they did, and what the bigger picture was. So what's the bigger picture? One big chunk is the approval rating of congress which usually is less than 10%, this is a big sign of how much the government is failing people, and of how much people utterly despise the establishment. I don't think people realize what an abysmal number that is, nor what the consequences of that number are either. (Though I suppose it maybe hitting some people squarely in the face now).
Another chunk is around 50% of Americans are poor or in poverty, and they don't see things getting better. You hear news of how the economy has recovered, but that hasn't benefited normal people at all. Many people are stuck with minimum-wage jobs if they're lucky, others have to work in multiple part-time jobs, and others don't have a job at all; and this situation is just getting worse and worse.
Yet another chunk of this picture is that around 67% of Americans do not trust the media. What people see is all filtered and in coded language. Instead of direct language everything is euphemisms and half-truths, if not straight up lies. Additionally this also means that the average person does not have a voice. The media also has been a huge failure at giving the average person a voice. This can be seen with how Occupy Wallstreet was handled as an example, or hell the Standing Rock protests currently happening.
This is the big picture: You have a country who's citizens are struggling to make ends meet, who do not have a voice in the government, and who have media that is utterly failing them. This reality has shaped American politics for at least the past decade.
Will the President of the USA change any of those elements of the big picture for the better? What President in recent US history has? In the past 16 years the USA had two very different Presidents, but did anything improve for the average person? As far as I can tell: Nothing did, and really things appear to be progressively getting worse and worse each year that passes. It's not to say that there haven't been some victories: Marijuana is getting closer and closer to being legalized, and equality of rights is still progressing forward; but everything else? Doesn't look like it.
Perhaps the most unfortunate thing of all is that there's a good chance that the American people will turn against themselves rather than stand up to the government that is failing them on so many levels, and will continue to fail them for the foreseeable future. The outrage or the jubilation people are experiencing from the outcome of this election in the end only serves to distract from the underlying problems: Just as it has done every election in the past.
Your government is horribly corrupt, and it doesn't matter what political stripe you wear; you know who's doing the corrupting, and it's certainly not the minorities.
█ I might regret posting this journal, but I'm willing to accept the consequences of it. Though who knew that the Cubs winning really was a sign of the apocalypse!
Oct 28: How I View Depression
Posted 9 years ago|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: A bit better at fighting the blahs
█ I suppose it's been about half a year since I've written about my status, and I keep semi-consider writing one up but it would just be me writing about the 'same old same old.' Sure there's various current event stuff that I could write about, but in all honesty all that's going to do is flare up emotions over things that we have very little control over.
Depression on the other hand is something that we do have some influence over one way or another. Those who have followed me over the years knows that I'm rather open about the state and nature of my depression through my journals (I'll link them at the end of this post for those curious), and the main reason why I'm open about it is that I'm comfortable with people knowing. Though I'm quite certain that I'm the exception and not the norm. If someone is depressed and don't want you to know about it, they won't.
One of the biggest problems with mental health is that there's a lot of emotion loaded into every term, and the word 'depression' will be used to describe so many things like sadness, loss, pain, emptiness, hopelessness, low self-esteem, suicidal, self-destructive, weak, lazy, unmotivated, so on and so forth. When a word can mean so many things it becomes a meaningless and powerless word.
Furthermore, because people self-define what depression is for them; they decide that definition applies to other people as well. So when someone gets over a bout of 'sadness' they view it as recovering from depression, which is completely different than someone suffering from low self-esteem, and is different from someone who is self-destructive.
So what is my own personal definition of depression? Well it's none of the things I've listed. You might wonder what else depression could describe, but I think the core of being depressed is this: Being unable to find the joy and happiness in the things you love. It's the core thing because when this happens everything else associated with depression can happen.
This is where people jump to the wrong conclusion, that then the obvious solution is to find the joy in life again. That's not the problem. The problem is when they do the things that are supposed to make them happy, they feel nothing. Most people would describe this feeling as 'burn-out' when you get tired of experiencing something even though you really liked it in the past. Something that's stimulating and exciting eventually becomes mundane and boring, but most people will recover from this feeling rather quickly and they can enjoy the experience again. For depressed people this isn't the case, it's perpetual "burn-out" that will last for weeks, months, years.
Though here is where people will jump to a different and still wrong conclusion, that then the obvious solution here is to find a new thing to enjoy and have fun with. This feeling is applied to all things, and is a general malaise. That people don't understand this causes problems for all the people involved because you'll have a non-depressed person trying everything to 'cheer-up' a depressed person, who get frustrated and angry because nothing works; and the depressed person will just feel worse because they can't change how the feel about their own situation, let alone explain why they're a stick in the mud.
Perhaps at this point you might wonder how I came to this particular conclusion about depression, the answer is simply that I currently don't really experience most of the associated negative things associated with depression that I mentioned: The sadness, the low-esteem, the self-destructive impulses, suicidal thoughts. I can honestly say that for the most part I'm comfortable with who I am and with my life. Can I say that I'm happy though? Not really as I find myself just going through the motions. Going through the motions is easy, even when you're preoccupied with horrible thoughts and negative feelings. Most of the the time the only thing expected of you is to show up and do the minimum (if even that).
So I go through the motions, and sometimes yes that applies to me creating art here on my gallery. Being creative is something I genuinely enjoy, well most of the time... sometimes it becomes very hard to pick up my pen and get to drawing. Some days it feels like an impossible task, a burden. This feeling can last for months at a time, which is pretty traceable throughout the history of my gallery uploads. Which is to say if you go through my gallery you'll find months long gaps in upload dates book marking the times where I was extremely depressed. Though keep in mind when I say extremely depressed I don't mean 'extremely sad' as those are different things, but I feel the need to keep reiterating the point. Far too many people view depression and sadness as equal things.
Certainly a lot of words just to define what "depression" is.
Now you can say that I'm no professional or trained expert on the subject, but to that I say "So what?'" I say it because when it comes to mental health we're still in the stone ages, using proverbial leeches and bloodletting to solve every kind of health issue. If trained people actually knew anything then there would be far fewer people hurting and killing themselves day to day. I'd argue they're part of the problem for being unable to define the nature of the problem they're trying combat, let alone be able to solve it.
█ So where am I going with this? Well the other day I had an epiphany, a realization, to one of the facets of my depression. For me it doesn't matter how much or how little, or how 'correct' of an amount of time of sleep I get; a lot of times I would just feel tired. This feeling of tiredness is extremely hard to differentiate from actually being tired, but for the past week I've been deliberately messing up my sleep schedule; only going to bed when I was tired enough to pass out within 10-30 minutes of laying down. I do have the understanding that this is unhealthy and a sign that I'm not getting enough sleep, but for me the alternative was to lay in bed tossing and turning for an hour or more alone with my thoughts (which can be unpleasant when you're depressed because you'll think about negative things rather than positive ones)
At this point I asked myself a very important question: "Why do I feel tired? It's certainly not because I don't get enough sleep" And then I realized that I felt tired because it made a horrible day more tolerable, and I had so many horrible days in the past. That being tired meant I didn't have to focus on the pain and suffering, that it could just roll over me instead of hitting me squarely.
These days I don't need that mechanism anymore, but I came to the realization that it never went away when my life got better; that it's always there tanking my mood to brace for a horrible day that doesn't really come anymore. Even as I write this it's still on, that feeling of sinking back into a state of tiredness; and it's really easy to sleep back into that state of mentally shutting down. Though I've been pushing back against it since I'm aware it's there, and why it's there. Part of the reason why my streams have been pretty much all day for the past few days as well.
I don't think there has been really anyone who has talked about the various mental coping mechanisms people develop to cope with being in stressful situations, how to recognize them, and how to dismantle them once they're not needed anymore; because they're just going to keep working and bracing you for expected stress and suffering even when you're removed from the stressful elements after the fact. I mention dismantling them because some people do have the ability to turn them off, but if they get turned on again people will relapse back into the same old habits. That's probably how I've been for the past several years, able to force my coping mechanisms into an off position; but easily triggered back into an on position. This time around I'm trying to dismantle it instead of just trying to turn it off.
This is ultimately why 'helping' a depressed person with encouragement and trying to make them happy doesn't really do anything, it doesn't change their state of mind. I imagine most depressed people have numerous mental coping and self-defense mechanisms that are in place, but the only ones truly able to take them apart is the person who put them up in the first place; though I doubt they know that they're even there. I certainly didn't know I had them setup for myself. I more or less dismissed it as me giving the sentiment of "I don't care" but I didn't know that my subconscious was actively setting my mood to 'tired' so that the events of the day would easily wash over me.
█ I suppose one last thing I'll touch on is 'knowing' if a person is depressed, as it's somewhat relevant considering recent events...
You won't know. Take myself as an example: How many of you reading this would think I'm a person who suffers from depression? Someone apparently full of energy and creativity right? Doesn't seem to fit the bill. Some of you might not even believe I suffer from depression at all, which of course adds to the problem people who struggle with depression.
You have so many people saying that depression is curable, with so many people who have 'gotten over it', and all this does is tell a person who is deep in depression that they don't want to be happy. That something is horribly wrong with them when it's an 'easy fix'. Why would a depressed person subject to themselves to that kind of negativity when it's far easier to fake a smile and act normal? They won't.
In addition to that a lot of depressed people don't want to burden others with their negative experiences and emotions as well, they're willing to share happy times; but the internal suffering? That has to be private, they don't want others to hurt; and they don't want to see people feeling sad because of their miserable state.
Which is in the end why I decided to write this journal, and why I wrote past journals in regards to this subject: That it shouldn't be private. I can't promise a healthy or even a comfortable environment where you can share the kind of pain you keep deep inside yourself, all I can do is just share my experiences and struggles; maybe providing a little bit of comfort to those who have had or still have similar feelings.
█ My past depression/mood-based journals, with different titles to relate directly more with what people might be feeling. (Ordered from oldest to newest). If you're struggling with something on your own, feel free to look at how I expressed myself on that subject.
"Attacks on the soul" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/533321/
"Suicide and pain" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/827807/
"Responsibility and abusive relationships" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1657865/
"Hope is evil" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2170977/
"Bully gets what he fucking deserves" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2182111/
"Struggling with self worth" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2283793/
"Cursed with empathy" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2329194/
"Money vs values" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2460828/
"Alone and rambling" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2799127/
"It doesn't get better" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2829155/
"If you build it they will break it" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3223413/
"Screaming silently" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3354561/
"Fragile state of mind" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3721216/
"Should I stay or should I go?" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3928961/
"Futilely explaining depression" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4690511/
"You're not helping" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5058852/
"People are selfish jerks" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5490093/
"Pretending to be happy" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6021943/
"I don't like passive aggressive people" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6263947/
"How I defined depression 2 years ago" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6294113/
"Being with people is exhausting" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6727125/
"It still doesn't get better" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7214189/
Man I've done a lot of 'emo' journals over the years... Though it does strike me that what I said 8 years ago still rings true:
"I implore you not to deny your own pain, should you have it. It's real, and you're not weak for feeling it. Being a tough guy when you're bleeding to death calling out proudly "It's only a flesh wound" only will end up in you dying. Maybe your heart won't stop beating, but your soul might just wither away and die."
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: A bit better at fighting the blahs
█ I suppose it's been about half a year since I've written about my status, and I keep semi-consider writing one up but it would just be me writing about the 'same old same old.' Sure there's various current event stuff that I could write about, but in all honesty all that's going to do is flare up emotions over things that we have very little control over.
Depression on the other hand is something that we do have some influence over one way or another. Those who have followed me over the years knows that I'm rather open about the state and nature of my depression through my journals (I'll link them at the end of this post for those curious), and the main reason why I'm open about it is that I'm comfortable with people knowing. Though I'm quite certain that I'm the exception and not the norm. If someone is depressed and don't want you to know about it, they won't.
One of the biggest problems with mental health is that there's a lot of emotion loaded into every term, and the word 'depression' will be used to describe so many things like sadness, loss, pain, emptiness, hopelessness, low self-esteem, suicidal, self-destructive, weak, lazy, unmotivated, so on and so forth. When a word can mean so many things it becomes a meaningless and powerless word.
Furthermore, because people self-define what depression is for them; they decide that definition applies to other people as well. So when someone gets over a bout of 'sadness' they view it as recovering from depression, which is completely different than someone suffering from low self-esteem, and is different from someone who is self-destructive.
So what is my own personal definition of depression? Well it's none of the things I've listed. You might wonder what else depression could describe, but I think the core of being depressed is this: Being unable to find the joy and happiness in the things you love. It's the core thing because when this happens everything else associated with depression can happen.
This is where people jump to the wrong conclusion, that then the obvious solution is to find the joy in life again. That's not the problem. The problem is when they do the things that are supposed to make them happy, they feel nothing. Most people would describe this feeling as 'burn-out' when you get tired of experiencing something even though you really liked it in the past. Something that's stimulating and exciting eventually becomes mundane and boring, but most people will recover from this feeling rather quickly and they can enjoy the experience again. For depressed people this isn't the case, it's perpetual "burn-out" that will last for weeks, months, years.
Though here is where people will jump to a different and still wrong conclusion, that then the obvious solution here is to find a new thing to enjoy and have fun with. This feeling is applied to all things, and is a general malaise. That people don't understand this causes problems for all the people involved because you'll have a non-depressed person trying everything to 'cheer-up' a depressed person, who get frustrated and angry because nothing works; and the depressed person will just feel worse because they can't change how the feel about their own situation, let alone explain why they're a stick in the mud.
Perhaps at this point you might wonder how I came to this particular conclusion about depression, the answer is simply that I currently don't really experience most of the associated negative things associated with depression that I mentioned: The sadness, the low-esteem, the self-destructive impulses, suicidal thoughts. I can honestly say that for the most part I'm comfortable with who I am and with my life. Can I say that I'm happy though? Not really as I find myself just going through the motions. Going through the motions is easy, even when you're preoccupied with horrible thoughts and negative feelings. Most of the the time the only thing expected of you is to show up and do the minimum (if even that).
So I go through the motions, and sometimes yes that applies to me creating art here on my gallery. Being creative is something I genuinely enjoy, well most of the time... sometimes it becomes very hard to pick up my pen and get to drawing. Some days it feels like an impossible task, a burden. This feeling can last for months at a time, which is pretty traceable throughout the history of my gallery uploads. Which is to say if you go through my gallery you'll find months long gaps in upload dates book marking the times where I was extremely depressed. Though keep in mind when I say extremely depressed I don't mean 'extremely sad' as those are different things, but I feel the need to keep reiterating the point. Far too many people view depression and sadness as equal things.
Certainly a lot of words just to define what "depression" is.
Now you can say that I'm no professional or trained expert on the subject, but to that I say "So what?'" I say it because when it comes to mental health we're still in the stone ages, using proverbial leeches and bloodletting to solve every kind of health issue. If trained people actually knew anything then there would be far fewer people hurting and killing themselves day to day. I'd argue they're part of the problem for being unable to define the nature of the problem they're trying combat, let alone be able to solve it.
█ So where am I going with this? Well the other day I had an epiphany, a realization, to one of the facets of my depression. For me it doesn't matter how much or how little, or how 'correct' of an amount of time of sleep I get; a lot of times I would just feel tired. This feeling of tiredness is extremely hard to differentiate from actually being tired, but for the past week I've been deliberately messing up my sleep schedule; only going to bed when I was tired enough to pass out within 10-30 minutes of laying down. I do have the understanding that this is unhealthy and a sign that I'm not getting enough sleep, but for me the alternative was to lay in bed tossing and turning for an hour or more alone with my thoughts (which can be unpleasant when you're depressed because you'll think about negative things rather than positive ones)
At this point I asked myself a very important question: "Why do I feel tired? It's certainly not because I don't get enough sleep" And then I realized that I felt tired because it made a horrible day more tolerable, and I had so many horrible days in the past. That being tired meant I didn't have to focus on the pain and suffering, that it could just roll over me instead of hitting me squarely.
These days I don't need that mechanism anymore, but I came to the realization that it never went away when my life got better; that it's always there tanking my mood to brace for a horrible day that doesn't really come anymore. Even as I write this it's still on, that feeling of sinking back into a state of tiredness; and it's really easy to sleep back into that state of mentally shutting down. Though I've been pushing back against it since I'm aware it's there, and why it's there. Part of the reason why my streams have been pretty much all day for the past few days as well.
I don't think there has been really anyone who has talked about the various mental coping mechanisms people develop to cope with being in stressful situations, how to recognize them, and how to dismantle them once they're not needed anymore; because they're just going to keep working and bracing you for expected stress and suffering even when you're removed from the stressful elements after the fact. I mention dismantling them because some people do have the ability to turn them off, but if they get turned on again people will relapse back into the same old habits. That's probably how I've been for the past several years, able to force my coping mechanisms into an off position; but easily triggered back into an on position. This time around I'm trying to dismantle it instead of just trying to turn it off.
This is ultimately why 'helping' a depressed person with encouragement and trying to make them happy doesn't really do anything, it doesn't change their state of mind. I imagine most depressed people have numerous mental coping and self-defense mechanisms that are in place, but the only ones truly able to take them apart is the person who put them up in the first place; though I doubt they know that they're even there. I certainly didn't know I had them setup for myself. I more or less dismissed it as me giving the sentiment of "I don't care" but I didn't know that my subconscious was actively setting my mood to 'tired' so that the events of the day would easily wash over me.
█ I suppose one last thing I'll touch on is 'knowing' if a person is depressed, as it's somewhat relevant considering recent events...
You won't know. Take myself as an example: How many of you reading this would think I'm a person who suffers from depression? Someone apparently full of energy and creativity right? Doesn't seem to fit the bill. Some of you might not even believe I suffer from depression at all, which of course adds to the problem people who struggle with depression.
You have so many people saying that depression is curable, with so many people who have 'gotten over it', and all this does is tell a person who is deep in depression that they don't want to be happy. That something is horribly wrong with them when it's an 'easy fix'. Why would a depressed person subject to themselves to that kind of negativity when it's far easier to fake a smile and act normal? They won't.
In addition to that a lot of depressed people don't want to burden others with their negative experiences and emotions as well, they're willing to share happy times; but the internal suffering? That has to be private, they don't want others to hurt; and they don't want to see people feeling sad because of their miserable state.
Which is in the end why I decided to write this journal, and why I wrote past journals in regards to this subject: That it shouldn't be private. I can't promise a healthy or even a comfortable environment where you can share the kind of pain you keep deep inside yourself, all I can do is just share my experiences and struggles; maybe providing a little bit of comfort to those who have had or still have similar feelings.
█ My past depression/mood-based journals, with different titles to relate directly more with what people might be feeling. (Ordered from oldest to newest). If you're struggling with something on your own, feel free to look at how I expressed myself on that subject.
"Attacks on the soul" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/533321/
"Suicide and pain" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/827807/
"Responsibility and abusive relationships" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/1657865/
"Hope is evil" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2170977/
"Bully gets what he fucking deserves" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2182111/
"Struggling with self worth" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2283793/
"Cursed with empathy" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2329194/
"Money vs values" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2460828/
"Alone and rambling" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2799127/
"It doesn't get better" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/2829155/
"If you build it they will break it" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3223413/
"Screaming silently" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3354561/
"Fragile state of mind" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3721216/
"Should I stay or should I go?" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/3928961/
"Futilely explaining depression" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4690511/
"You're not helping" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5058852/
"People are selfish jerks" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5490093/
"Pretending to be happy" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6021943/
"I don't like passive aggressive people" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6263947/
"How I defined depression 2 years ago" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6294113/
"Being with people is exhausting" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6727125/
"It still doesn't get better" http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/7214189/
Man I've done a lot of 'emo' journals over the years... Though it does strike me that what I said 8 years ago still rings true:
"I implore you not to deny your own pain, should you have it. It's real, and you're not weak for feeling it. Being a tough guy when you're bleeding to death calling out proudly "It's only a flesh wound" only will end up in you dying. Maybe your heart won't stop beating, but your soul might just wither away and die."
Commission "October" (Halloween)
Posted 9 years ago|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Still fighting the blahs
█ What with Halloween approaching once again, figured might as well do some arts in relation to that once again.
For those curious this was the result of the previous year http://www.furaffinity.net/view/18110389/ (I might mash everything together into a single image at the end of the month again)
As like with previous times, I cobble together art at about $10-15 an hour and it takes about 2-3 hours to do.
If you're interested leave a comment below containing the following:
- A reference link to your character
- Type of Halloween related situation
- What parts of your character you want showing, otherwise will end up fully covered depending on the situation
Example situations that come off the top of my head: The pumpkin related stuff (encased, being captured by, or droned), vine/tentacle things, bandages/mummification, goo/latex stuff, other things that I didn't really think about when writing this that could relate...
This will be more or less first come first serve and I'll see how many I can do this time around this year.
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Still fighting the blahs
█ What with Halloween approaching once again, figured might as well do some arts in relation to that once again.
For those curious this was the result of the previous year http://www.furaffinity.net/view/18110389/ (I might mash everything together into a single image at the end of the month again)
As like with previous times, I cobble together art at about $10-15 an hour and it takes about 2-3 hours to do.
If you're interested leave a comment below containing the following:
- A reference link to your character
- Type of Halloween related situation
- What parts of your character you want showing, otherwise will end up fully covered depending on the situation
Example situations that come off the top of my head: The pumpkin related stuff (encased, being captured by, or droned), vine/tentacle things, bandages/mummification, goo/latex stuff, other things that I didn't really think about when writing this that could relate...
This will be more or less first come first serve and I'll see how many I can do this time around this year.
Commission "Last half of July" (Keywords)
Posted 9 years ago|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Recovering sorta
█ I think my mood has recovered enough for me to work on doing some arts again. Said mood is a bit different from other times in regards to doing art. I'm not one to really use keywords in my submissions as I generally just blank on what to put in the moment and decide to leave it blank; so I figured why not do some art commissions in where people provide me the keywords and I'll just draw in the picture to fit the keywords used as best as possible.
So that's the commission theme: Leave a character reference and as many or as few keywords as you like and if it's something that grabs my interest I'll give it a shot. Could be vague, could be specific, could tell me to use some or all.
As per other times I try to work at about $10-15 an hour and typically it takes me 2-3 hours to put something together.
If you're interested leave a comment below, and I'll try to do some art for the next couple of weeks while my sanity holds.
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Recovering sorta
█ I think my mood has recovered enough for me to work on doing some arts again. Said mood is a bit different from other times in regards to doing art. I'm not one to really use keywords in my submissions as I generally just blank on what to put in the moment and decide to leave it blank; so I figured why not do some art commissions in where people provide me the keywords and I'll just draw in the picture to fit the keywords used as best as possible.
So that's the commission theme: Leave a character reference and as many or as few keywords as you like and if it's something that grabs my interest I'll give it a shot. Could be vague, could be specific, could tell me to use some or all.
As per other times I try to work at about $10-15 an hour and typically it takes me 2-3 hours to put something together.
If you're interested leave a comment below, and I'll try to do some art for the next couple of weeks while my sanity holds.
May 22: It's the Circle of FA Liiiiife
Posted 9 years ago|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Still the blahs, but not as bad
█ So FA is alive again, that's good. It's a bit of a running joke of how FA is unstable, unreliable, and goes down for days or weeks at a time; and moreover how people are idiots for sticking with it despite it being so miserably managed and run. I personally don't keep track of things all too closely. Most times when FA has gone down in the past it's been for a few hours here or there every few months or whatever. Sometimes it goes down and back up without me even noticing since I don't spend 24/7 of my time here. The last time FA was down for a significant period of time was it was hit with a DOS attack back in December of 2013. So really that was over two years ago and something that was out FA's hands.
No doubt there will be another wave of "I'm leaving FA" journals popping around, and it's pretty justifiable for most people. Some will go as far as to hope FA crashes and burns, such as the way of things. Which is the other running joke: How people who leave FA will be back in a week, if not tomorrow. A lot of people ask why that is when clearly other sites are superior in management and functionality. The short and simple answer is just brand recognition. More people know about it, so more people use it. That's all there is to it.
Granted this does have ripple effects as well, and the ones who feel the consequences of that the most are those who make money via art commissions, or simply want attention. It's far harder to get traction anywhere else. It wouldn't be too much of an issue if another site had say 70% or 50% of the traffic FA has, but I from what I've seen that's simply not the case. It seems to be more around 10% or less, and it makes things difficult for those who choose to migrate off FA. It's quite striking as an example you go from 100 views on an image down to 10 or 1. I probably have enough of a presence in the community that I could probably build up enough of a base to work commissions off comfortably, but that's definitely not the case for artists who barely get enough attention on FA. Some don't get enough as is, and showing up another site would just be even worse.
It's not like this phenomenon is isolated to FA only. Take Facebook for example, there's lots of other options for a social media site, but Facebook is the only game in town; despite it's questionable privacy policy. Online stores and auctions: Amazon. Search engine: Google. Operating system? Windows. Another thing of note is the most popular thing is the one that also is the target of the most attacks. Easy one is Windows, where viruses and the like end up with your data stolen; people back then talked about how Apple computers didn't get viruses, but back then hardly anyone ever used them so relatively few viruses were written for them. I could have a wooden gate with a piece of string used as a lock and go "This is the most secure gate ever" and someone using a bank vault door gets broken into. What's the reality of the situation? That my security is better, or that my security just isn't pressured as much?
It's not like credit card companies or banks haven't lost the personal information of their customers in the past right? Except they have. What security system exists out there that's perfect while allowing information to transfer in and out? Throwing money at the problem certainly doesn't work because the richest institutions in the world have had information breaches and leaks. Not that any of this really matters, people will blame whoever or whatever they wish to; and usually the blame goes towards the easiest most accessible target. In the case of FA it's always blame FA, that's probably part of the running joke too.
█ In regards to my physical health, my weight still is stable and hovering at around 200lbs. Which is to say I still need to lose 20-30 more. I also had results of previous blood-work and generally good news on that front as my blood sugar levels are back in the normal range instead of pre-diabetic. Cholesterol levels also went down.
Mental health is the same old same old, trying on a daily basis to scrap together the willpower to work on art. Overall I'm doing better than previous years, but I still need to work on that. It's hard to stay in a happy positive mood when there's so much negativity around the world, which of course gets concentrated a whole lot on the Internet. I kinda wonder how other people view the world as a whole with the constant barrage of bile and hatred. I know I do my best to avoid such things, but when it's everywhere it's hard not to see it every now and then.
█ Still have my ant farm, and a few days ago the second generation were walking about bringing the worker count from 5 to 9 with another half dozen that will probably be fully developed in a week or two. I'd take photos but I'm a weird person who doesn't have a phone and therefore no camera.
EDIT: Also card games cause why not?
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Still the blahs, but not as bad
█ So FA is alive again, that's good. It's a bit of a running joke of how FA is unstable, unreliable, and goes down for days or weeks at a time; and moreover how people are idiots for sticking with it despite it being so miserably managed and run. I personally don't keep track of things all too closely. Most times when FA has gone down in the past it's been for a few hours here or there every few months or whatever. Sometimes it goes down and back up without me even noticing since I don't spend 24/7 of my time here. The last time FA was down for a significant period of time was it was hit with a DOS attack back in December of 2013. So really that was over two years ago and something that was out FA's hands.
No doubt there will be another wave of "I'm leaving FA" journals popping around, and it's pretty justifiable for most people. Some will go as far as to hope FA crashes and burns, such as the way of things. Which is the other running joke: How people who leave FA will be back in a week, if not tomorrow. A lot of people ask why that is when clearly other sites are superior in management and functionality. The short and simple answer is just brand recognition. More people know about it, so more people use it. That's all there is to it.
Granted this does have ripple effects as well, and the ones who feel the consequences of that the most are those who make money via art commissions, or simply want attention. It's far harder to get traction anywhere else. It wouldn't be too much of an issue if another site had say 70% or 50% of the traffic FA has, but I from what I've seen that's simply not the case. It seems to be more around 10% or less, and it makes things difficult for those who choose to migrate off FA. It's quite striking as an example you go from 100 views on an image down to 10 or 1. I probably have enough of a presence in the community that I could probably build up enough of a base to work commissions off comfortably, but that's definitely not the case for artists who barely get enough attention on FA. Some don't get enough as is, and showing up another site would just be even worse.
It's not like this phenomenon is isolated to FA only. Take Facebook for example, there's lots of other options for a social media site, but Facebook is the only game in town; despite it's questionable privacy policy. Online stores and auctions: Amazon. Search engine: Google. Operating system? Windows. Another thing of note is the most popular thing is the one that also is the target of the most attacks. Easy one is Windows, where viruses and the like end up with your data stolen; people back then talked about how Apple computers didn't get viruses, but back then hardly anyone ever used them so relatively few viruses were written for them. I could have a wooden gate with a piece of string used as a lock and go "This is the most secure gate ever" and someone using a bank vault door gets broken into. What's the reality of the situation? That my security is better, or that my security just isn't pressured as much?
It's not like credit card companies or banks haven't lost the personal information of their customers in the past right? Except they have. What security system exists out there that's perfect while allowing information to transfer in and out? Throwing money at the problem certainly doesn't work because the richest institutions in the world have had information breaches and leaks. Not that any of this really matters, people will blame whoever or whatever they wish to; and usually the blame goes towards the easiest most accessible target. In the case of FA it's always blame FA, that's probably part of the running joke too.
█ In regards to my physical health, my weight still is stable and hovering at around 200lbs. Which is to say I still need to lose 20-30 more. I also had results of previous blood-work and generally good news on that front as my blood sugar levels are back in the normal range instead of pre-diabetic. Cholesterol levels also went down.
Mental health is the same old same old, trying on a daily basis to scrap together the willpower to work on art. Overall I'm doing better than previous years, but I still need to work on that. It's hard to stay in a happy positive mood when there's so much negativity around the world, which of course gets concentrated a whole lot on the Internet. I kinda wonder how other people view the world as a whole with the constant barrage of bile and hatred. I know I do my best to avoid such things, but when it's everywhere it's hard not to see it every now and then.
█ Still have my ant farm, and a few days ago the second generation were walking about bringing the worker count from 5 to 9 with another half dozen that will probably be fully developed in a week or two. I'd take photos but I'm a weird person who doesn't have a phone and therefore no camera.
EDIT: Also card games cause why not?
Apr 16: Status Report
Posted 9 years ago|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Fighting depression again
█ I actually don't really know what to write about in this journal as it's mostly stuff I've gone over several times before. I suppose the upside is that for the most part I've managed to keep relatively undepressed for I guess around fourish months, so that's something. Undepressed is about as good of a word I can use to describe my mental state, I'm not depressed; but I'm not particularly happy in so much as I'm 'here'. It's still as not as bad as it could be and I'm still working through it. I generally don't like to report on such things cause I don't really want people to worry about it as I do invariably work through it, though I do appreciate the support I get. I suppose ultimately that's one of the 'weird' things about depression as encouragement and support aren't things that can cure depression, and for me personally isn't something that's effective at combating it either; but they're things people on the outside looking in feel they have to try to make things better. Ultimately they aren't effective because they're fleeting moments.
I think the best way to describe depression for those who have never experienced it is you take a song that gets stuck in your head for days on end, but replace that song with negative thoughts. The more you repeat it, the stronger it gets stuck. The occasional bit of encouragement isn't going to do much against a mind that is stuck in a negative feedback loop. For myself personally I've managed to 'forget' the lyrics of the song, but the music is still there; so on the emotional level I still feel empty. I've gotten past the self-blame, self-doubt, and the self-esteem issues; but just because I've managed to evict the bulk of the negativity that consumed my mental and emotional state doesn't mean that the impression it left on me isn't still there. It's something I've been living with for a long while and continue to do so, it's just kinda how it ended up being.
Mental health aside, physical health is kinda steady. Still trying to lose weight, but the weight loss has stopped and hasn't moved up or down in any fashion. I've somewhat lapsed on that and I need to try and refocus on that. I fully admit that the depression makes it all the harder to loose weight because I know some of my eating is linked to my emotional state. I have enough control on that part to not have that completely derail me.
█ I'm still working on art though, but extremely slowly. I kinda hope this vent journal will help me be able to refocus on what's been basically two lost weeks. Hopefully I'll have some things to post in the next couple of weeks.
█ In other news my ant farm is showing signs of it being spring. Though the worker count dropped from 6 to 5 sometime in the past couple of months, the queen is producing eggs and the remaining workers have been taking care of them now. For awhile I was worried that the queen at some point forgot she was one and the ant farm would have had a rather short existence.
█ Still mainly playing Hearthstone as some people are interested in what games I do play. Mostly waiting on the next expansion and the changes it's bringing to slow down the game and perhaps make it more enjoyable. Though speaking of Blizzard, the whole Nostalrius thing made me think about what WoW was and what it became. I haven't played WoW in a long time (though I do poke at it now and then with the free 10-day trials that my account gets every so often) and I think I'd probably would go back if there was a legacy server that had Vanilla or BC WoW, and probably would pay some money for it; like I don't know 5 or 10 dollars a month. There's a lot of reasons why that I could ramble on for hours about, but ultimately it's not reasons for nostalgia; I just think that WoW was a better game back then. The last thing I did with WoW was play WoW: The Facebook Game with my previous free 10 day trial (AKA The Garrison) and there just wasn't anything there and nothing really to strive for.
I also did play a bit of slither.io for a couple of hours. I regretted it, not because it was unfun; but rather because it caused stiffness and numbness in my wrist. Probably something I won't play again cause I need my wrist to do arts!
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Fighting depression again
█ I actually don't really know what to write about in this journal as it's mostly stuff I've gone over several times before. I suppose the upside is that for the most part I've managed to keep relatively undepressed for I guess around fourish months, so that's something. Undepressed is about as good of a word I can use to describe my mental state, I'm not depressed; but I'm not particularly happy in so much as I'm 'here'. It's still as not as bad as it could be and I'm still working through it. I generally don't like to report on such things cause I don't really want people to worry about it as I do invariably work through it, though I do appreciate the support I get. I suppose ultimately that's one of the 'weird' things about depression as encouragement and support aren't things that can cure depression, and for me personally isn't something that's effective at combating it either; but they're things people on the outside looking in feel they have to try to make things better. Ultimately they aren't effective because they're fleeting moments.
I think the best way to describe depression for those who have never experienced it is you take a song that gets stuck in your head for days on end, but replace that song with negative thoughts. The more you repeat it, the stronger it gets stuck. The occasional bit of encouragement isn't going to do much against a mind that is stuck in a negative feedback loop. For myself personally I've managed to 'forget' the lyrics of the song, but the music is still there; so on the emotional level I still feel empty. I've gotten past the self-blame, self-doubt, and the self-esteem issues; but just because I've managed to evict the bulk of the negativity that consumed my mental and emotional state doesn't mean that the impression it left on me isn't still there. It's something I've been living with for a long while and continue to do so, it's just kinda how it ended up being.
Mental health aside, physical health is kinda steady. Still trying to lose weight, but the weight loss has stopped and hasn't moved up or down in any fashion. I've somewhat lapsed on that and I need to try and refocus on that. I fully admit that the depression makes it all the harder to loose weight because I know some of my eating is linked to my emotional state. I have enough control on that part to not have that completely derail me.
█ I'm still working on art though, but extremely slowly. I kinda hope this vent journal will help me be able to refocus on what's been basically two lost weeks. Hopefully I'll have some things to post in the next couple of weeks.
█ In other news my ant farm is showing signs of it being spring. Though the worker count dropped from 6 to 5 sometime in the past couple of months, the queen is producing eggs and the remaining workers have been taking care of them now. For awhile I was worried that the queen at some point forgot she was one and the ant farm would have had a rather short existence.
█ Still mainly playing Hearthstone as some people are interested in what games I do play. Mostly waiting on the next expansion and the changes it's bringing to slow down the game and perhaps make it more enjoyable. Though speaking of Blizzard, the whole Nostalrius thing made me think about what WoW was and what it became. I haven't played WoW in a long time (though I do poke at it now and then with the free 10-day trials that my account gets every so often) and I think I'd probably would go back if there was a legacy server that had Vanilla or BC WoW, and probably would pay some money for it; like I don't know 5 or 10 dollars a month. There's a lot of reasons why that I could ramble on for hours about, but ultimately it's not reasons for nostalgia; I just think that WoW was a better game back then. The last thing I did with WoW was play WoW: The Facebook Game with my previous free 10 day trial (AKA The Garrison) and there just wasn't anything there and nothing really to strive for.
I also did play a bit of slither.io for a couple of hours. I regretted it, not because it was unfun; but rather because it caused stiffness and numbness in my wrist. Probably something I won't play again cause I need my wrist to do arts!
Commission "First half of April" (Animation)
Posted 9 years ago|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Anxiety levels a bit high
█ Once again will be taking and doing commissions for the first half of the month. This month I'll try to focus on those who want something that can be made into a simplistic animation loop. It could be anything ranging from ants, plants, cocoons, goo, pods, ect. or perhaps something else you might have in mind. What you can request of course doesn't have to be an animation either.
█ I'll be doing commissions randomly throughout the next two weeks (in theory), if you're interested leave a comment in this journal with a reference and a specific idea or at the very least a general theme.
I try to work at a rate of around $10-15 an hour.
Small projects take about 2-4 hours.
(single images, simple animations)
Large projects take about 5-8 hours or more.
(multiple image sequence, comic pages, animations with transitions)
What I pick will be at random as it's determined mostly by my mood, and is typically done in one sitting if possible, so there's usually minimal to none back and forth communication. (I find my motivation and mood tend to decline rapidly the longer a project drags on, which is why I do it this way).
Half way through the month this journal will be closed and a new one created at the start of next month. If I didn't do your commission in the previous journal, feel free to copy and paste it here and hope that my brain decides to pick you this time around.
Additionally feel free to leave more than one idea, probably has a greater chance of something catching my interest if you have multiple ideas that you want to see done.
More in-depth information about how I tend to work can be found at http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10135111/
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Anxiety levels a bit high
█ Once again will be taking and doing commissions for the first half of the month. This month I'll try to focus on those who want something that can be made into a simplistic animation loop. It could be anything ranging from ants, plants, cocoons, goo, pods, ect. or perhaps something else you might have in mind. What you can request of course doesn't have to be an animation either.
█ I'll be doing commissions randomly throughout the next two weeks (in theory), if you're interested leave a comment in this journal with a reference and a specific idea or at the very least a general theme.
I try to work at a rate of around $10-15 an hour.
Small projects take about 2-4 hours.
(single images, simple animations)
Large projects take about 5-8 hours or more.
(multiple image sequence, comic pages, animations with transitions)
What I pick will be at random as it's determined mostly by my mood, and is typically done in one sitting if possible, so there's usually minimal to none back and forth communication. (I find my motivation and mood tend to decline rapidly the longer a project drags on, which is why I do it this way).
Half way through the month this journal will be closed and a new one created at the start of next month. If I didn't do your commission in the previous journal, feel free to copy and paste it here and hope that my brain decides to pick you this time around.
Additionally feel free to leave more than one idea, probably has a greater chance of something catching my interest if you have multiple ideas that you want to see done.
More in-depth information about how I tend to work can be found at http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10135111/
Shout Out Comic YCH Thinngy
Posted 9 years ago
Tacticalkit Was kind enough to share with me some scribbles that were inspired off some of my work (bondage/d-rings/pod/rubber that kinda stuff) Though intended to keep them private since they were just scribbles, but it seems like they'll be fleshed out into something more substantial.If you're curious as to see what it's about give the link a poke and send him a note about it.
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/19248366/
There's also a few other scribbles in the gallery that might be worth looking at as well.
(May delete this journal after a few days).
Commission "First half of March" (Madness)
Posted 9 years ago|██████████|SANITY
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Status: Still pretty sane
█ This month's theme is "March Madness" so probably will do stuff around the stereotypical straitjacket/padded-cell crazies/strapped-to-bed/muzzled crazies (or whatever else that might be applicable to said theme). Though feel free to post non-themed ideas. Next month might be "Animation April" where I try to do more animations.
█ I'll be doing commissions randomly throughout the next two weeks (in theory), if you're interested leave a comment in this journal with a reference and a specific idea or at the very least a general theme.
I try to work at a rate of around $10-15 an hour.
Small projects take about 2-4 hours.
(single images, simple animations)
Large projects take about 5-8 hours or more.
(multiple image sequence, comic pages, animations with transitions)
What I pick will be at random as it's determined mostly by my mood, and is typically done in one sitting if possible, so there's usually minimal to none back and forth communication. (I find my motivation and mood tend to decline rapidly the longer a project drags on, which is why I do it this way).
Half way through the month this journal will be closed and a new one created at the start of next month. If I didn't do your commission in the previous journal, feel free to copy and paste it here and hope that my brain decides to pick you this time around.
Additionally feel free to leave more than one idea, probably has a greater chance of something catching my interest if you have multiple ideas that you want to see done.
More in-depth information about how I tend to work can be found at http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10135111/
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Still pretty sane
█ This month's theme is "March Madness" so probably will do stuff around the stereotypical straitjacket/padded-cell crazies/strapped-to-bed/muzzled crazies (or whatever else that might be applicable to said theme). Though feel free to post non-themed ideas. Next month might be "Animation April" where I try to do more animations.
█ I'll be doing commissions randomly throughout the next two weeks (in theory), if you're interested leave a comment in this journal with a reference and a specific idea or at the very least a general theme.
I try to work at a rate of around $10-15 an hour.
Small projects take about 2-4 hours.
(single images, simple animations)
Large projects take about 5-8 hours or more.
(multiple image sequence, comic pages, animations with transitions)
What I pick will be at random as it's determined mostly by my mood, and is typically done in one sitting if possible, so there's usually minimal to none back and forth communication. (I find my motivation and mood tend to decline rapidly the longer a project drags on, which is why I do it this way).
Half way through the month this journal will be closed and a new one created at the start of next month. If I didn't do your commission in the previous journal, feel free to copy and paste it here and hope that my brain decides to pick you this time around.
Additionally feel free to leave more than one idea, probably has a greater chance of something catching my interest if you have multiple ideas that you want to see done.
More in-depth information about how I tend to work can be found at http://www.furaffinity.net/view/10135111/
Feb 16: Monthly Update - Schedule
Posted 9 years ago|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Continuing to try
█ This update is a little delayed, granted at the same time the commission journals kind of replaced it a little bit. The current setup I have of having the commission journal open for a week or two, doing what I can/feel like within it so far is keeping me from burning out. It still doesn't feel great to not be able to 'do everything' that's been asked, but that might be a bit of OCD on my part; in the end having the out to just be done with the commission journal despite how many I've done helps a great deal. Regardless I do apologize to those who I don't get around to.
Currently I have a rough plan of how I want to do moving forward: The first half of the month I'll try to do commission work, and hopefully my mood will cooperate with that. The second half I'll be trying to put work towards personal projects. For the rest of February I'm going to be trying to put together a kind of flash-based combat system similar to what's used in Darkest Dungeon. I might stream me doing this work for those interested in watching me attempt to do coding (which I am not very good at).
The first half of March I'll probably be doing some more themed type commissions of "March Madness"; so probably stuff around straitjackets, strapped to beds, stuff themed around that kinda thing at any rate. I might try to come up with various themes each month, but I'm not exactly a person who's very good at planning too hard ahead.
I might also do a write-up in regards to how the S.A.D. stuff works later as there's been various questions related to it, and over the years my brain has a slightly clearer idea of what the 'rules' are.
█ In personal health related issues still steadily loosing weight, I'm down about 15 from my heaviest; though after reworking some various numbers around BMI and what not I at this point should shed another 20-30. It's been slow going with a couple of lapses here and there, but the lapses thankfully only resulted in my weight stabilizing as opposed to going up.
Still combating depression related stuff, but for the past month and a half it's been mostly manageable so far. Staying sane is woooooork.
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Continuing to try
█ This update is a little delayed, granted at the same time the commission journals kind of replaced it a little bit. The current setup I have of having the commission journal open for a week or two, doing what I can/feel like within it so far is keeping me from burning out. It still doesn't feel great to not be able to 'do everything' that's been asked, but that might be a bit of OCD on my part; in the end having the out to just be done with the commission journal despite how many I've done helps a great deal. Regardless I do apologize to those who I don't get around to.
Currently I have a rough plan of how I want to do moving forward: The first half of the month I'll try to do commission work, and hopefully my mood will cooperate with that. The second half I'll be trying to put work towards personal projects. For the rest of February I'm going to be trying to put together a kind of flash-based combat system similar to what's used in Darkest Dungeon. I might stream me doing this work for those interested in watching me attempt to do coding (which I am not very good at).
The first half of March I'll probably be doing some more themed type commissions of "March Madness"; so probably stuff around straitjackets, strapped to beds, stuff themed around that kinda thing at any rate. I might try to come up with various themes each month, but I'm not exactly a person who's very good at planning too hard ahead.
I might also do a write-up in regards to how the S.A.D. stuff works later as there's been various questions related to it, and over the years my brain has a slightly clearer idea of what the 'rules' are.
█ In personal health related issues still steadily loosing weight, I'm down about 15 from my heaviest; though after reworking some various numbers around BMI and what not I at this point should shed another 20-30. It's been slow going with a couple of lapses here and there, but the lapses thankfully only resulted in my weight stabilizing as opposed to going up.
Still combating depression related stuff, but for the past month and a half it's been mostly manageable so far. Staying sane is woooooork.
Commission "Week" for Feb 04 (S.A.D.)
Posted 9 years ago|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: I'm bad at consistency
█ Had a bit of a mental/mood implosion this past week. So trying this again. Since it's February, Singles Awareness Day is once again creeping upon various people. I'll probably prioritize these kinds of commission requests up till the 14th. Once again I hope to try and maintain a drawing mood.
█ I'll be doing commissions randomly throughout the next few days (in theory), if you're interested leave a comment in this journal with a reference and a specific idea or at the very least a general theme.
I try to work at a rate of around $10-15 an hour.
Small projects take about 2-4 hours.
(single images, simple animations)
Large projects take about 5-8 hours or more.
(multiple image sequence, comic pages, animations with transitions)
What I pick will be at random as it's determined mostly by my mood, and is typically done in one sitting if possible, so there's usually minimal to none back and forth communication. (I find my motivation and mood tend to decline rapidly the longer a project drags on, which is why I do it this way).
After around a week (also in theory) this journal will be closed and a new one created. If I didn't do your commission in the previous journal, feel free to copy and paste it here and hope that my brain decides to pick you this time around.
Additionally feel free to leave more than one idea, probably has a greater chance of something catching my interest if you have multiple ideas that you want to see done.
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: I'm bad at consistency
█ Had a bit of a mental/mood implosion this past week. So trying this again. Since it's February, Singles Awareness Day is once again creeping upon various people. I'll probably prioritize these kinds of commission requests up till the 14th. Once again I hope to try and maintain a drawing mood.
█ I'll be doing commissions randomly throughout the next few days (in theory), if you're interested leave a comment in this journal with a reference and a specific idea or at the very least a general theme.
I try to work at a rate of around $10-15 an hour.
Small projects take about 2-4 hours.
(single images, simple animations)
Large projects take about 5-8 hours or more.
(multiple image sequence, comic pages, animations with transitions)
What I pick will be at random as it's determined mostly by my mood, and is typically done in one sitting if possible, so there's usually minimal to none back and forth communication. (I find my motivation and mood tend to decline rapidly the longer a project drags on, which is why I do it this way).
After around a week (also in theory) this journal will be closed and a new one created. If I didn't do your commission in the previous journal, feel free to copy and paste it here and hope that my brain decides to pick you this time around.
Additionally feel free to leave more than one idea, probably has a greater chance of something catching my interest if you have multiple ideas that you want to see done.
Commission "Week" for Jan 24
Posted 9 years ago|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Trying to stay on target
█ Forcing myself back into this yet again. Previous commission journal once again doesn't count.
█ I'll be doing commissions randomly throughout the next few days (in theory), if you're interested leave a comment in this journal with a reference and a specific idea or at the very least a general theme.
I try to work at a rate of around $10-15 an hour.
Small projects take about 2-4 hours.
(single images, simple animations)
Large projects take about 5-8 hours or more.
(multiple image sequence, comic pages, animations with transitions)
What I pick will be at random as it's determined mostly by my mood, and is typically done in one sitting if possible, so there's usually minimal to none back and forth communication. (I find my motivation and mood tend to decline rapidly the longer a project drags on, which is why I do it this way).
After around a week (also in theory) this journal will be closed and a new one created. If I didn't do your commission in the previous journal, feel free to copy and paste it here and hope that my brain decides to pick you this time around.
Additionally feel free to leave more than one idea, probably has a greater chance of something catching my interest if you have multiple ideas that you want to see done.
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Trying to stay on target
█ Forcing myself back into this yet again. Previous commission journal once again doesn't count.
█ I'll be doing commissions randomly throughout the next few days (in theory), if you're interested leave a comment in this journal with a reference and a specific idea or at the very least a general theme.
I try to work at a rate of around $10-15 an hour.
Small projects take about 2-4 hours.
(single images, simple animations)
Large projects take about 5-8 hours or more.
(multiple image sequence, comic pages, animations with transitions)
What I pick will be at random as it's determined mostly by my mood, and is typically done in one sitting if possible, so there's usually minimal to none back and forth communication. (I find my motivation and mood tend to decline rapidly the longer a project drags on, which is why I do it this way).
After around a week (also in theory) this journal will be closed and a new one created. If I didn't do your commission in the previous journal, feel free to copy and paste it here and hope that my brain decides to pick you this time around.
Additionally feel free to leave more than one idea, probably has a greater chance of something catching my interest if you have multiple ideas that you want to see done.
Commission "Week" for Jan 12
Posted 9 years ago|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Hungry
█ Pushing myself a bit to write this journal up. I suppose this is going to be a bit like learning how to ride a bike: As in when you fall down you force yourself to get back up and try again. That said I'm still in the middle of working on one of the commissions from the previous 'week'. Hopefully will be done later today after going out for more bloodwork or tomorrow.
Granted part of the reason why I fell off the art bike recently was I ended up playing a lot of "Endless Legend" which is a turn based strategy game. I watched a bit of it being played recently and I realized I hadn't played one in forever and felt an urge to do so. Course at the same time I knew if I did I'd probably be consumed by it for awhile.
█ If you posted in the previous journal and are still interested you'll have to repost in this one. I'll try to be a bit more busy in regards to commissions the next few days. Keyword: Try *coughhackwheeze*
Copy pasting previous journal rule things:
It's not first come first serve, but rather I'll pick based on my rather fickle mood throughout the week. What I get done will be what I get done, which might be a bunch or a couple; after that I'll write up a new commission journal. If I feel it sorta went well it'll be the same system, but those who got something the previous week will be asked to hold off from requesting anything for that week.
I try to work at around $10 an hour, as such small things tend to take me around 2-3 hours where as a larger project will be 5-8, if not more; so try to keep that in mind when you make a request.
As a reminder I generally do not do back and forth as I usually just look at the reference and description and put an image together in a single sitting. Sometimes I make exceptions, but when I do it's usually me asking for more detail or clarification on how a sequence should pan out.
Finally as to what I'll do this week, ask for anything really: If I feel like doing it I'll do it. If you've been following me and know what my gallery consists of you'll know the themes I work with. You can request for single images, a sequence/comic page, an animation, or something else. I won't really know what I'll feel like working on at any given point in time.
That all said if you're interested in me putting something together for you leave a comment below with the following:
- A link to your character reference(s) and any differences from the references there are (if any).
- What you want done in detail (I work better with more detail as a general rule)
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Hungry
█ Pushing myself a bit to write this journal up. I suppose this is going to be a bit like learning how to ride a bike: As in when you fall down you force yourself to get back up and try again. That said I'm still in the middle of working on one of the commissions from the previous 'week'. Hopefully will be done later today after going out for more bloodwork or tomorrow.
Granted part of the reason why I fell off the art bike recently was I ended up playing a lot of "Endless Legend" which is a turn based strategy game. I watched a bit of it being played recently and I realized I hadn't played one in forever and felt an urge to do so. Course at the same time I knew if I did I'd probably be consumed by it for awhile.
█ If you posted in the previous journal and are still interested you'll have to repost in this one. I'll try to be a bit more busy in regards to commissions the next few days. Keyword: Try *coughhackwheeze*
Copy pasting previous journal rule things:
It's not first come first serve, but rather I'll pick based on my rather fickle mood throughout the week. What I get done will be what I get done, which might be a bunch or a couple; after that I'll write up a new commission journal. If I feel it sorta went well it'll be the same system, but those who got something the previous week will be asked to hold off from requesting anything for that week.
I try to work at around $10 an hour, as such small things tend to take me around 2-3 hours where as a larger project will be 5-8, if not more; so try to keep that in mind when you make a request.
As a reminder I generally do not do back and forth as I usually just look at the reference and description and put an image together in a single sitting. Sometimes I make exceptions, but when I do it's usually me asking for more detail or clarification on how a sequence should pan out.
Finally as to what I'll do this week, ask for anything really: If I feel like doing it I'll do it. If you've been following me and know what my gallery consists of you'll know the themes I work with. You can request for single images, a sequence/comic page, an animation, or something else. I won't really know what I'll feel like working on at any given point in time.
That all said if you're interested in me putting something together for you leave a comment below with the following:
- A link to your character reference(s) and any differences from the references there are (if any).
- What you want done in detail (I work better with more detail as a general rule)
Jan 03: Farewell JasenTamiia
Posted 9 years ago|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Somber
█ I suppose I'll start off with what I know, and honestly it's not much.
JasenTamiia was killed in an accident sometime on New Years Eve. This information was relayed in a shout by one of his friends on his FA page that were picked up by a few people. As the news spread many people understandably hoped that it was a lie and a hoax. The friend later then posted another shout in response/concerns over that it's a hoax that he was contacted directly by his father (this shout I did see). Maybe more details will crop of revealing what happened, or maybe there won't be; though I can certainly understand the need for the information, it's hard to accept what's floating around as true from a single source; but it does seem that the original source is his father.
EDIT: Words from his father here.
I've been trying to process this for half a day, and I don't really know what to say. For these things I'm mostly at a loss. What are words to a life? I didn't really know him, but I do remember chatting with him over an IM a long while back; about what I don't really recall (I even tried to sift through my message history to see if anything was there, but I'm pretty sure whatever the conversation was is long lost). Words, lost in the ether of time. The art he created spoke louder than words, it spoke to many people who in turn also listened; and it can speak just as loud today as it did in the past. There is of course more to an artist than the stuff they create, but that's how they're remembered and how they continue to speak to those who wish to listen well after they've gone.
Even though I didn't really know him, I did on occasion go through his stuff to see what interesting ideas he had put to digital paper; and often they were quite so. I think I took a bit of solace in that he was an artist that had a style that was more on the simple side but effective, it let me be more comfortable with my own art that I feel leans more towards being simple. I suppose there was a bit of envy as well when it came to the ideas he expressed because they tread on grounds which I have difficulty with (It's hard to decouple my brain from logic and continuity). I'm sure people will continue to enjoy his artwork in the future, and enjoy it free from the sadness that surrounds it currently. Perhaps that's the best one can hope for.
I don't really know how to end this particular journal. I've been sitting here for what feels like forever unsure if I should even press the button to post this journal... Though I guess I should, to show that he did have an impact on my life, and that he did have some meaning within it.
I did stumble across a link to his WIP commissions which is at https://trello.com/b/Xy1IqFh6/commissions I suppose in a way... his last words...
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Somber
█ I suppose I'll start off with what I know, and honestly it's not much.
JasenTamiia was killed in an accident sometime on New Years Eve. This information was relayed in a shout by one of his friends on his FA page that were picked up by a few people. As the news spread many people understandably hoped that it was a lie and a hoax. The friend later then posted another shout in response/concerns over that it's a hoax that he was contacted directly by his father (this shout I did see). Maybe more details will crop of revealing what happened, or maybe there won't be; though I can certainly understand the need for the information, it's hard to accept what's floating around as true from a single source; but it does seem that the original source is his father. EDIT: Words from his father here.
I've been trying to process this for half a day, and I don't really know what to say. For these things I'm mostly at a loss. What are words to a life? I didn't really know him, but I do remember chatting with him over an IM a long while back; about what I don't really recall (I even tried to sift through my message history to see if anything was there, but I'm pretty sure whatever the conversation was is long lost). Words, lost in the ether of time. The art he created spoke louder than words, it spoke to many people who in turn also listened; and it can speak just as loud today as it did in the past. There is of course more to an artist than the stuff they create, but that's how they're remembered and how they continue to speak to those who wish to listen well after they've gone.
Even though I didn't really know him, I did on occasion go through his stuff to see what interesting ideas he had put to digital paper; and often they were quite so. I think I took a bit of solace in that he was an artist that had a style that was more on the simple side but effective, it let me be more comfortable with my own art that I feel leans more towards being simple. I suppose there was a bit of envy as well when it came to the ideas he expressed because they tread on grounds which I have difficulty with (It's hard to decouple my brain from logic and continuity). I'm sure people will continue to enjoy his artwork in the future, and enjoy it free from the sadness that surrounds it currently. Perhaps that's the best one can hope for.
I don't really know how to end this particular journal. I've been sitting here for what feels like forever unsure if I should even press the button to post this journal... Though I guess I should, to show that he did have an impact on my life, and that he did have some meaning within it.
I did stumble across a link to his WIP commissions which is at https://trello.com/b/Xy1IqFh6/commissions I suppose in a way... his last words...
Commission Week for Dec 31
Posted 9 years ago|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Changes in progress
█ Will be attempting to do commissions a bit more often than I have in the past year which was rather sparse overall. Still trying to find something that works for me, so will be experimenting with that a bit.
How this one will go as follows:
It's not first come first serve, but rather I'll pick based on my rather fickle mood throughout the week. What I get done will be what I get done, which might be a bunch or a couple; after that I'll write up a new commission journal. If I feel it sorta went well it'll be the same system, but those who got something the previous week will be asked to hold off from requesting anything for that week.
I try to work at around $10 an hour, as such small things tend to take me around 2-3 hours where as a larger project will be 5-8, if not more; so try to keep that in mind when you make a request.
As a reminder I generally do not do back and forth as I usually just look at the reference and description and put an image together in a single sitting. Sometimes I make exceptions, but when I do it's usually me asking for more detail or clarification on how a sequence should pan out.
Finally as to what I'll do this week, ask for anything really: If I feel like doing it I'll do it. If you've been following me and know what my gallery consists of you'll know the themes I work with. You can request for single images, a sequence/comic page, an animation, or something else. I won't really know what I'll feel like working on at any given point in time.
█ That all said if you're interested in me putting something together for you leave a comment below with the following:
- A link to your character reference(s) and any differences from the references there are (if any).
- What you want done in detail (I work better with more detail as a general rule)
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Changes in progress
█ Will be attempting to do commissions a bit more often than I have in the past year which was rather sparse overall. Still trying to find something that works for me, so will be experimenting with that a bit.
How this one will go as follows:
It's not first come first serve, but rather I'll pick based on my rather fickle mood throughout the week. What I get done will be what I get done, which might be a bunch or a couple; after that I'll write up a new commission journal. If I feel it sorta went well it'll be the same system, but those who got something the previous week will be asked to hold off from requesting anything for that week.
I try to work at around $10 an hour, as such small things tend to take me around 2-3 hours where as a larger project will be 5-8, if not more; so try to keep that in mind when you make a request.
As a reminder I generally do not do back and forth as I usually just look at the reference and description and put an image together in a single sitting. Sometimes I make exceptions, but when I do it's usually me asking for more detail or clarification on how a sequence should pan out.
Finally as to what I'll do this week, ask for anything really: If I feel like doing it I'll do it. If you've been following me and know what my gallery consists of you'll know the themes I work with. You can request for single images, a sequence/comic page, an animation, or something else. I won't really know what I'll feel like working on at any given point in time.
█ That all said if you're interested in me putting something together for you leave a comment below with the following:
- A link to your character reference(s) and any differences from the references there are (if any).
- What you want done in detail (I work better with more detail as a general rule)
Dec 29: Monthly Update - Health Stuff
Posted 9 years ago|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Dot Dot Dot
█ Time for another journal. Early this month after a bit of prodding went to the doctor for the first time in about a decade, and went in regards to my depression. I wasn't particularly interested in medications as a solution so I was pointed in a direction of a book "Mind Over Mood". Reading through the relevant parts has helped a little, but mostly it's stuff I've known and been aware of; but it's setup to help analyze and pinpoint things that can help shift one's state of mind. Self-awareness is actually something that's pretty difficult when you try to get down to the nitty gritty details. The main take away for me currently is to force myself to do something I enjoy (drawing) even if I don't really feel like it or get any enjoyment out of it at the time at least once a day for at least a little while.
Granted this isn't where my particular health story ends. My doctor had me get some bloodwork done to make sure my depression wasn't being caused by a different source such as diabetes or some other physical problem. That and well having more up to date information on my health was something that was needed anyways. The first set of results weren't exactly great as it turns out I'm diabetic. Though to put that in perspective people who have blood sugar of 6.5% or above are considered as such, I'm sitting at 6.6%. Out of curiosity I did inquire about medications, which did end up with a semi-amusing bit of information of that for people with severe cases of diabetes who need medication, they shoot for a blood sugar level of 7% or lower; which puts me in a grey area. Either way it's something I'm working towards taking care of as the impact on my body later in life of course wouldn't be good. The results also showed some potential issues with my kidneys and liver as well and I had some additional bloodwork to get more information in regards to that. I won't know more till the results come in an my doctor talks to me about that.
At any rate I've started to look a lot closer at my calorie intake to get rid of the extra 25ish pounds I'm carrying, which hopefully at the same time gets my blood sugar levels down to something more normal. I've been eating slightly less for about a week and been actually counting the calories I'm taking in in the past few days and I seem to be down about 5 pounds.
In the end I feel fine physically, so it's good that these things got noticed earlier before I did start to feel physical effects.
█ While I'm chipping away at improving my mental and physical health, there is one issue I'm still trying to deal with and that's anxiety over money. Not in having it or not having it, just with it in general. I've never been comfortable with it, and I avoid thinking about it when I can; which of course makes certain things difficult with living in a money-centric world. I suppose it would be even worse if I was a highly materialistic person who wanted stuff all the time. Course maybe I wouldn't have that kind of anxiety if I did want stuff because I would have to overcome that anxiety pretty quickly. I still have problems with my thoughts in regards to money and the like, due to the endless possibilities of threats and dangers that comes with it. Certainly enough stories of how people's lives get a lot of undo stress or are outright ruined by it in one fashion or another to make me uncomfortable with it on a whole. I'm not entirely sure of how I can get rid of the anxiety I have around this particular issue, all I've been able to do is be able to manage it. Not like I have a choice in that regards, still need money for food and the like.
█ Speaking of, I'll probably be writing up a commission journal later today or tomorrow. Somewhat depends if I decide to spend a bit of today actually putting things into folders to postpone assembling that journal together.
Hope you all have had a good 2015!
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Dot Dot Dot
█ Time for another journal. Early this month after a bit of prodding went to the doctor for the first time in about a decade, and went in regards to my depression. I wasn't particularly interested in medications as a solution so I was pointed in a direction of a book "Mind Over Mood". Reading through the relevant parts has helped a little, but mostly it's stuff I've known and been aware of; but it's setup to help analyze and pinpoint things that can help shift one's state of mind. Self-awareness is actually something that's pretty difficult when you try to get down to the nitty gritty details. The main take away for me currently is to force myself to do something I enjoy (drawing) even if I don't really feel like it or get any enjoyment out of it at the time at least once a day for at least a little while.
Granted this isn't where my particular health story ends. My doctor had me get some bloodwork done to make sure my depression wasn't being caused by a different source such as diabetes or some other physical problem. That and well having more up to date information on my health was something that was needed anyways. The first set of results weren't exactly great as it turns out I'm diabetic. Though to put that in perspective people who have blood sugar of 6.5% or above are considered as such, I'm sitting at 6.6%. Out of curiosity I did inquire about medications, which did end up with a semi-amusing bit of information of that for people with severe cases of diabetes who need medication, they shoot for a blood sugar level of 7% or lower; which puts me in a grey area. Either way it's something I'm working towards taking care of as the impact on my body later in life of course wouldn't be good. The results also showed some potential issues with my kidneys and liver as well and I had some additional bloodwork to get more information in regards to that. I won't know more till the results come in an my doctor talks to me about that.
At any rate I've started to look a lot closer at my calorie intake to get rid of the extra 25ish pounds I'm carrying, which hopefully at the same time gets my blood sugar levels down to something more normal. I've been eating slightly less for about a week and been actually counting the calories I'm taking in in the past few days and I seem to be down about 5 pounds.
In the end I feel fine physically, so it's good that these things got noticed earlier before I did start to feel physical effects.
█ While I'm chipping away at improving my mental and physical health, there is one issue I'm still trying to deal with and that's anxiety over money. Not in having it or not having it, just with it in general. I've never been comfortable with it, and I avoid thinking about it when I can; which of course makes certain things difficult with living in a money-centric world. I suppose it would be even worse if I was a highly materialistic person who wanted stuff all the time. Course maybe I wouldn't have that kind of anxiety if I did want stuff because I would have to overcome that anxiety pretty quickly. I still have problems with my thoughts in regards to money and the like, due to the endless possibilities of threats and dangers that comes with it. Certainly enough stories of how people's lives get a lot of undo stress or are outright ruined by it in one fashion or another to make me uncomfortable with it on a whole. I'm not entirely sure of how I can get rid of the anxiety I have around this particular issue, all I've been able to do is be able to manage it. Not like I have a choice in that regards, still need money for food and the like.
█ Speaking of, I'll probably be writing up a commission journal later today or tomorrow. Somewhat depends if I decide to spend a bit of today actually putting things into folders to postpone assembling that journal together.
Hope you all have had a good 2015!
Dec 01: Monthly Update - A Bit of Rambling
Posted 10 years ago|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: The attack of the blahs
█ Still alive, though in one of those mood slumps for the past month. Doing my best to fight that off in that ever constant battle. I am sorta seeing a doctor about it due to some slight prodding, but I have to get some blood work done to make sure that my depression isn't being caused by something physical like the onset of diabetes. That gets done early this month in theory, and probably some followup later on whenever. The conversation I had with the doctor was somewhat stressful, but really I find talking to people in general a stressful event and I avoid it as a rule. There was a bit of semi-philosophical talk, but it's stuff I've done before with myself and other people. General stuff like "things could be better" but I live with the sentiment of "it could be a lot worse" because I've lived in the a lot worse times. Essentially being a person who has a hard time being happy and is generally lethargic and lacking in energy is simply way, way, waaaaaaay better than being a person who thought about suicide on a daily basis; and I can find contentment in that. Would I like to be happy? I guess the answer is 'yes' but for me I kinda view being 'happy' as somewhat similar to asking a blind person if they would like to 'see'. How do you answer yes to something to which you have no idea what it is. Sure it seems like it's better than what you currently have, but the steps to get there are unknown and you've already grown to accept and live with your current condition. In a way I suppose it might be just me talking myself out of happiness, and as sad as it might sound I think I'm okay with that. I'm okay with it because I'm not in the state of mind where I need to be 'saved' from myself, and I think a long time ago I would have been ecstatic and grateful for any help I got; but that wasn't the hand I was dealt in life, rather every time I tried to reach out I would be met with apathy or ridicule instead. People killed themselves all the time over such things, but it took online exploitation of teenage girls to finally get people to pay attention to the thing that people just accepted as a part of growing up: "bullying". Course even with all the attention shown, I'm still I suppose a bitter cynic. The "It gets better" slogan used to try and 'cheer-up' people who are victims of it I feel is meaningless drivel, because all it sells is hope; and hope is worthless. For some people it doesn't get better, and for some people they can't wait for it get better; they need help now. Even for some who do get that help immediately, the damage is already there; and sometimes it's already too deep and too late. We have bandages and splints for a broken body, we have nothing for a broken spirit. At any rate this is all cathartic for me, I rediscover happiness one way or another then I suppose that'll be good. It's not like I'm unable to laugh, smile, have a good time; it's just that those feelings fade into the ether very quickly, and ultimately forgotten. Ultimately what sticks to me is the barbs, the sadness, the pain, the hurt; and there was a lot of it. Though my time here has had some... permanence in regards to holding on to something more happy, because it ends up on a piece of art; so that even if I at times forget the joy, it's a bit easier for me to rediscover it because what I've created doesn't vanish as easily.
█ For the curious my ant farm is hibernating. Though it's advised I place them in a shed outside or something (supposedly they do produce some anti-freeze to survive the sub zero temperatures) I don't really have anything I could do in that regards, so I simply did a half measure of placing them between the panes of my double paned window which has a tendency of freezing over when it gets cold. I don't really expect them to do anything for a few months. Incidentally I'd take pictures of them but I don't have a camera, weird I know; but I think I've mentioned before I have no use for a smart phone.
█ I want to try to get back into art this month one way or another. Hopefully I can get myself to do so.
Thanks for reading, being awesome and kind people. Despite my time here, I'm still taken back that so many people choose to follow what I do.
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: The attack of the blahs
█ Still alive, though in one of those mood slumps for the past month. Doing my best to fight that off in that ever constant battle. I am sorta seeing a doctor about it due to some slight prodding, but I have to get some blood work done to make sure that my depression isn't being caused by something physical like the onset of diabetes. That gets done early this month in theory, and probably some followup later on whenever. The conversation I had with the doctor was somewhat stressful, but really I find talking to people in general a stressful event and I avoid it as a rule. There was a bit of semi-philosophical talk, but it's stuff I've done before with myself and other people. General stuff like "things could be better" but I live with the sentiment of "it could be a lot worse" because I've lived in the a lot worse times. Essentially being a person who has a hard time being happy and is generally lethargic and lacking in energy is simply way, way, waaaaaaay better than being a person who thought about suicide on a daily basis; and I can find contentment in that. Would I like to be happy? I guess the answer is 'yes' but for me I kinda view being 'happy' as somewhat similar to asking a blind person if they would like to 'see'. How do you answer yes to something to which you have no idea what it is. Sure it seems like it's better than what you currently have, but the steps to get there are unknown and you've already grown to accept and live with your current condition. In a way I suppose it might be just me talking myself out of happiness, and as sad as it might sound I think I'm okay with that. I'm okay with it because I'm not in the state of mind where I need to be 'saved' from myself, and I think a long time ago I would have been ecstatic and grateful for any help I got; but that wasn't the hand I was dealt in life, rather every time I tried to reach out I would be met with apathy or ridicule instead. People killed themselves all the time over such things, but it took online exploitation of teenage girls to finally get people to pay attention to the thing that people just accepted as a part of growing up: "bullying". Course even with all the attention shown, I'm still I suppose a bitter cynic. The "It gets better" slogan used to try and 'cheer-up' people who are victims of it I feel is meaningless drivel, because all it sells is hope; and hope is worthless. For some people it doesn't get better, and for some people they can't wait for it get better; they need help now. Even for some who do get that help immediately, the damage is already there; and sometimes it's already too deep and too late. We have bandages and splints for a broken body, we have nothing for a broken spirit. At any rate this is all cathartic for me, I rediscover happiness one way or another then I suppose that'll be good. It's not like I'm unable to laugh, smile, have a good time; it's just that those feelings fade into the ether very quickly, and ultimately forgotten. Ultimately what sticks to me is the barbs, the sadness, the pain, the hurt; and there was a lot of it. Though my time here has had some... permanence in regards to holding on to something more happy, because it ends up on a piece of art; so that even if I at times forget the joy, it's a bit easier for me to rediscover it because what I've created doesn't vanish as easily.
█ For the curious my ant farm is hibernating. Though it's advised I place them in a shed outside or something (supposedly they do produce some anti-freeze to survive the sub zero temperatures) I don't really have anything I could do in that regards, so I simply did a half measure of placing them between the panes of my double paned window which has a tendency of freezing over when it gets cold. I don't really expect them to do anything for a few months. Incidentally I'd take pictures of them but I don't have a camera, weird I know; but I think I've mentioned before I have no use for a smart phone.
█ I want to try to get back into art this month one way or another. Hopefully I can get myself to do so.
Thanks for reading, being awesome and kind people. Despite my time here, I'm still taken back that so many people choose to follow what I do.
Oct 31: Montly Update - Argh My Back!
Posted 10 years ago|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Aching!
█ So I've been doing art for basically 8 days straight doing the Halloween themed stuff, and I suppose my body is paying a little bit of a price for it. Not the first time either, the last significant time it was the wrist of my drawing hand (bought a brace for that rather fun predicament). The back pain was mostly a silly mistake on my part as I can draw in a position where it doesn't strain it, which I did switch to when the pain set in. It's mostly recovered at this point. Course my shoulder is a bit achy now as I type this out. Still over the course of the 8 days I ended up drawing over two dozen bodies for the Halloween picture, quite a bit of drawing.
Needless to say I'll probably be taking a little bit of a break from the drawing for a little bit. I need to think on what kind of theme or project to work on next anyways. I have a few ideas which I might flesh out later on in the next few days. Hopefully I'll be open commission wise a bit more frequently in the coming months as well, though no promises; it's not like my depression goes away forever and it does sneak back randomly. How I do commissions might change slightly next time around as well, though that will depend on some factors and I'll probably elaborate in the next commission based journal entry.
In regards to the Halloween picture itself, I do have individual pictures of them each (The people who own the characters should all have a copy) but I'm unsure as if I want to upload them to my own gallery... so many of them... course I suppose that might be an opportunity to start setting up those mystical folders that FA introduced. Course I'm also lazy.
I don't think I have much to report otherwise. For those who remain curious my ant farm status remains unchanged from the last monthly update.
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Aching!
█ So I've been doing art for basically 8 days straight doing the Halloween themed stuff, and I suppose my body is paying a little bit of a price for it. Not the first time either, the last significant time it was the wrist of my drawing hand (bought a brace for that rather fun predicament). The back pain was mostly a silly mistake on my part as I can draw in a position where it doesn't strain it, which I did switch to when the pain set in. It's mostly recovered at this point. Course my shoulder is a bit achy now as I type this out. Still over the course of the 8 days I ended up drawing over two dozen bodies for the Halloween picture, quite a bit of drawing.
Needless to say I'll probably be taking a little bit of a break from the drawing for a little bit. I need to think on what kind of theme or project to work on next anyways. I have a few ideas which I might flesh out later on in the next few days. Hopefully I'll be open commission wise a bit more frequently in the coming months as well, though no promises; it's not like my depression goes away forever and it does sneak back randomly. How I do commissions might change slightly next time around as well, though that will depend on some factors and I'll probably elaborate in the next commission based journal entry.
In regards to the Halloween picture itself, I do have individual pictures of them each (The people who own the characters should all have a copy) but I'm unsure as if I want to upload them to my own gallery... so many of them... course I suppose that might be an opportunity to start setting up those mystical folders that FA introduced. Course I'm also lazy.
I don't think I have much to report otherwise. For those who remain curious my ant farm status remains unchanged from the last monthly update.
Oct 18: Halloween Group Commission (Closed)
Posted 10 years ago|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Semi-motivated
█ Have a semi-coalesced idea and combine that with food money being a bit on the low end and you get this journal!
The gist of the image is I'll be drawing multiple characters into an image (I don't know how many exactly) and there will be a few possible situations:
Bondage by vines/leaves/vegetation with optional pumpkins!
Encased in pumpkin/jack-o-lantern (above ground mostly)
Planted mostly into the ground (head above ground, perhaps covered up like a pumpkin)
Tied up as a scarecrow
Caught in scattered purpley goo/latex pits
Some other things that might be appropriately themed
It may end up something along the lines of this older submission http://www.furaffinity.net/view/6669517/
█ I'm going to put the costs as follows based on what I figure the relative difficulty and time required for each will be:
Planted in the ground (only head visible) $10
Pumpkined/Scarecrowed/gooed $30
Tangled/Tied/Prodded by Vines/Leaves/Pumpkin $40
I'll likely be saving individual versions of the images for people who are interested, but I might only post the finalized group picture depending on how things go with me doing this.
█ If you're interested leave a post in this journal with a reference, and what situation you want to be caught up in. Additionally tell me if you want your face covered or not, as well as any other specific things you want added in. Otherwise it will just be me doing whatever I feel like.
█ Hopefully I don't go insane doing this. Ha hahaha haaaaaaaaah. Yeah.
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Semi-motivated
█ Have a semi-coalesced idea and combine that with food money being a bit on the low end and you get this journal!
The gist of the image is I'll be drawing multiple characters into an image (I don't know how many exactly) and there will be a few possible situations:
Bondage by vines/leaves/vegetation with optional pumpkins!
Encased in pumpkin/jack-o-lantern (above ground mostly)
Planted mostly into the ground (head above ground, perhaps covered up like a pumpkin)
Tied up as a scarecrow
Caught in scattered purpley goo/latex pits
Some other things that might be appropriately themed
It may end up something along the lines of this older submission http://www.furaffinity.net/view/6669517/
█ I'm going to put the costs as follows based on what I figure the relative difficulty and time required for each will be:
Planted in the ground (only head visible) $10
Pumpkined/Scarecrowed/gooed $30
Tangled/Tied/Prodded by Vines/Leaves/Pumpkin $40
I'll likely be saving individual versions of the images for people who are interested, but I might only post the finalized group picture depending on how things go with me doing this.
█ If you're interested leave a post in this journal with a reference, and what situation you want to be caught up in. Additionally tell me if you want your face covered or not, as well as any other specific things you want added in. Otherwise it will just be me doing whatever I feel like.
█ Hopefully I don't go insane doing this. Ha hahaha haaaaaaaaah. Yeah.
Sep 29: Another Monthly Update
Posted 10 years ago|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Dot dot dot
█ Not a whole lot on my mind this past month. Just mostly been struggling with bouts of fatigue where my energy levels have been fluctuating a bit in where I'm tired enough to sleep hours earlier than I normally would, which leads into the next day where I end up staying up a bit longer than I normally would. Though despite that arts has still been happening, and getting a bit more comfortable with the amount I can manage without causing myself too much stress. Personal motivation is still a tricky thing.
I might be doing stream announcements via my journal in the future since deleting submissions requires an extra step to confirm now, which is a good idea just makes handling stream announcements a bit more bothersome since I do like to clean up the stream submissions.
I suppose at some point I should sort my gallery into folders, but with over a thousand submissions that task is a bit more on the daunting side. That and I'm not completely sure what themes of folders I really should go by.
Not much to report in regards to my ant farm. Still a queen and 6 workers so no casualties this month. Though there was almost one when one of them escaped when putting in another mosquito that died buzzing around my head, falling into a box. Took a bit but managed to find and put her back into the setup with her sisters apparently no worse for wear.
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Dot dot dot
█ Not a whole lot on my mind this past month. Just mostly been struggling with bouts of fatigue where my energy levels have been fluctuating a bit in where I'm tired enough to sleep hours earlier than I normally would, which leads into the next day where I end up staying up a bit longer than I normally would. Though despite that arts has still been happening, and getting a bit more comfortable with the amount I can manage without causing myself too much stress. Personal motivation is still a tricky thing.
I might be doing stream announcements via my journal in the future since deleting submissions requires an extra step to confirm now, which is a good idea just makes handling stream announcements a bit more bothersome since I do like to clean up the stream submissions.
I suppose at some point I should sort my gallery into folders, but with over a thousand submissions that task is a bit more on the daunting side. That and I'm not completely sure what themes of folders I really should go by.
Not much to report in regards to my ant farm. Still a queen and 6 workers so no casualties this month. Though there was almost one when one of them escaped when putting in another mosquito that died buzzing around my head, falling into a box. Took a bit but managed to find and put her back into the setup with her sisters apparently no worse for wear.
Aug 31: Monthly Update
Posted 10 years ago|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Thankful for clean air
█ That time again to produce a journal to show I'm still alive! Not a whole lot on art-wise currently, I'll probably have something to post in the next few days which I've been slowly poking at over the course of this month.
Other thing of note is that the past week has been rather smokey as the winds have carried smoke from out of control forest fires into the area, dropping the air quality so low that it rivals the most polluted cities in the world. Not to fun to have to keep the windows closed on hot days. Thankfully the past couple of days it has cleared up, just hope the winds don't shift again and bring that smoke back here.
Also 'older' once again this month, and I suppose the various and mysterious muscle sprains I've gotten while I've been sleeping attest to that. Earlier in the month it was one on my left jaw that took a week to work out, and after that cleared up one in my abdomen sprained itself while I was sleeping, and that's slowly on the way out. I suppose I prefer to have the muscle sprains to happen while asleep cause I've had them while I've been awake and those are rather unpleasant.
Finally the pet ants I have are doing okay. Though I somewhat suspect that one of them was cannibalized by her sisters since there was seven worker ants and now there's only six. I've thrown mosquitoes I've swatted at them and they've happily eaten them. Considering how few of them there are they're still pretty ravenous.
Hope to be a bit more active in September, course hoping usually doesn't produce results!
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Thankful for clean air
█ That time again to produce a journal to show I'm still alive! Not a whole lot on art-wise currently, I'll probably have something to post in the next few days which I've been slowly poking at over the course of this month.
Other thing of note is that the past week has been rather smokey as the winds have carried smoke from out of control forest fires into the area, dropping the air quality so low that it rivals the most polluted cities in the world. Not to fun to have to keep the windows closed on hot days. Thankfully the past couple of days it has cleared up, just hope the winds don't shift again and bring that smoke back here.
Also 'older' once again this month, and I suppose the various and mysterious muscle sprains I've gotten while I've been sleeping attest to that. Earlier in the month it was one on my left jaw that took a week to work out, and after that cleared up one in my abdomen sprained itself while I was sleeping, and that's slowly on the way out. I suppose I prefer to have the muscle sprains to happen while asleep cause I've had them while I've been awake and those are rather unpleasant.
Finally the pet ants I have are doing okay. Though I somewhat suspect that one of them was cannibalized by her sisters since there was seven worker ants and now there's only six. I've thrown mosquitoes I've swatted at them and they've happily eaten them. Considering how few of them there are they're still pretty ravenous.
Hope to be a bit more active in September, course hoping usually doesn't produce results!
Jul 30: Childhood Reminder of Ants
Posted 10 years ago|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Still Melting
█ Writing a journal in attempt to follow a resolution to try and do so at least once a month. Nothing too much to report as I'm still working on the motivation issues, though I suppose I have some progress as I've actually been scribbling a few things the past couple of days. Hopefully I'll be able to put a bit more focus on it and get it into a more finished state in a reasonable amount of time.
█ Though as to what the title of this particular refers to, I find a chunk of memories I retain from my childhood (that were along more positive veins instead of negative ones) were of my interaction with ants, even if it was just watching them. I believe the earliest one I have was perhaps that of when I was in pre-school/kindergarden or whatever it's called these days, where one of the other kids brought in an ant farm for show and tell. I remember picking them up in my backyard, my dad building an ant farm that really only existed for a few days from my recollection. I recall it being kind of elaborate in design, but thinking back on it not very functional; certainly wasn't something that you could bring indoors or move around easily. On a few occasions I would see queen ants running along the sidewalks and pavement and would attempt to see if I could take care of them to the point where they'd start a colony. It never did pan out as I didn't really know anything about how to take care of ants. I certainly did read a fair share of books about ants, but that information was generally about stuff about their behaviors, physical trails, life cycle; nothing at all of how to actually take care of them. This was all during the time when the internet was still young, browsers clunky, connections slow. So I never did have the knowledge to take care of a newly mated queen ant looking to establish a colony. It was something that slipped outside my sphere of awareness as there was fewer reasons for me to be walking outside on the sidewalks for any length of time. The odds of me encountering queen ants as such of course went down next to zero.
Yet despite that, while bringing in groceries from the car I spotted one: A queen ant, something I hadn't seen for year; maybe even in a decade. She still had wings, but considering there weren't any other ants flying about I suspected she already had mated and was looking for a place to found a colony. It took a minute or so but I eventually managed to pick her up by the wings and placed her inside an empty tic-tac box while I tried to figure out what exactly what I should do with her. Internet to the rescue. All my previous attempts centered around various kinds of ant-farms which I eventually learned weren't all that great for the purpose of getting a queen started. The dirt you put in and moisture levels would either be too dry, too wet, or end up with mold growths. I learned all that needed to be done was to have a container where you can place water inside and block it off with a medium (in my case paper towel) and to block the entrance to said container as well. Test tubes were recommended, but since I didn't have any of those around I did think of something that was pretty close: An old pencil lead container, from when I was still drawing my art with a mechanical pencil. So I filled it with water, blocked it and blocked it off with some paper towel. The pencil lead container already had a cap that wasn't exactly air tight so I used that to keep the queen inside. All of that was done earlier this month and today she's still in there, still alive; and with seven larvae. It's as far as I've gotten with a queen ant. Previous best was some eggs, and that was an accidental discovery as I dismantled an earlier attempt that was having a mold outbreak and discovered that there was a queen deeper inside (That I didn't even know was still alive)
So far the experience is nostalgic for me, a reminder of that childhood wonder and interest I had. It's kind of strange to have that sensation of... I suppose 'life' is the best way I can put it. Perhaps it's the only thing from my childhood that doesn't have the burden of negativity saddled with it in one form or another. No heavy burden of expectation from another. No 'ultimate' goal. No final 'purpose'. It was just me and my personal interest in ants. Course I'll be a little sad and disappointed if this attempt doesn't pan out either, but I already failed at it multiple times before; it never changed my interest, nor my drive it seems cause I think I feel just as excited about the prospect as I ever did when the first time I tried; maybe perhaps more so since I have the internet help me through the attempt this time around. Though yeah, it's a strange unfamiliar feeling overall. Something I haven't felt in a long time.
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Still Melting
█ Writing a journal in attempt to follow a resolution to try and do so at least once a month. Nothing too much to report as I'm still working on the motivation issues, though I suppose I have some progress as I've actually been scribbling a few things the past couple of days. Hopefully I'll be able to put a bit more focus on it and get it into a more finished state in a reasonable amount of time.
█ Though as to what the title of this particular refers to, I find a chunk of memories I retain from my childhood (that were along more positive veins instead of negative ones) were of my interaction with ants, even if it was just watching them. I believe the earliest one I have was perhaps that of when I was in pre-school/kindergarden or whatever it's called these days, where one of the other kids brought in an ant farm for show and tell. I remember picking them up in my backyard, my dad building an ant farm that really only existed for a few days from my recollection. I recall it being kind of elaborate in design, but thinking back on it not very functional; certainly wasn't something that you could bring indoors or move around easily. On a few occasions I would see queen ants running along the sidewalks and pavement and would attempt to see if I could take care of them to the point where they'd start a colony. It never did pan out as I didn't really know anything about how to take care of ants. I certainly did read a fair share of books about ants, but that information was generally about stuff about their behaviors, physical trails, life cycle; nothing at all of how to actually take care of them. This was all during the time when the internet was still young, browsers clunky, connections slow. So I never did have the knowledge to take care of a newly mated queen ant looking to establish a colony. It was something that slipped outside my sphere of awareness as there was fewer reasons for me to be walking outside on the sidewalks for any length of time. The odds of me encountering queen ants as such of course went down next to zero.
Yet despite that, while bringing in groceries from the car I spotted one: A queen ant, something I hadn't seen for year; maybe even in a decade. She still had wings, but considering there weren't any other ants flying about I suspected she already had mated and was looking for a place to found a colony. It took a minute or so but I eventually managed to pick her up by the wings and placed her inside an empty tic-tac box while I tried to figure out what exactly what I should do with her. Internet to the rescue. All my previous attempts centered around various kinds of ant-farms which I eventually learned weren't all that great for the purpose of getting a queen started. The dirt you put in and moisture levels would either be too dry, too wet, or end up with mold growths. I learned all that needed to be done was to have a container where you can place water inside and block it off with a medium (in my case paper towel) and to block the entrance to said container as well. Test tubes were recommended, but since I didn't have any of those around I did think of something that was pretty close: An old pencil lead container, from when I was still drawing my art with a mechanical pencil. So I filled it with water, blocked it and blocked it off with some paper towel. The pencil lead container already had a cap that wasn't exactly air tight so I used that to keep the queen inside. All of that was done earlier this month and today she's still in there, still alive; and with seven larvae. It's as far as I've gotten with a queen ant. Previous best was some eggs, and that was an accidental discovery as I dismantled an earlier attempt that was having a mold outbreak and discovered that there was a queen deeper inside (That I didn't even know was still alive)
So far the experience is nostalgic for me, a reminder of that childhood wonder and interest I had. It's kind of strange to have that sensation of... I suppose 'life' is the best way I can put it. Perhaps it's the only thing from my childhood that doesn't have the burden of negativity saddled with it in one form or another. No heavy burden of expectation from another. No 'ultimate' goal. No final 'purpose'. It was just me and my personal interest in ants. Course I'll be a little sad and disappointed if this attempt doesn't pan out either, but I already failed at it multiple times before; it never changed my interest, nor my drive it seems cause I think I feel just as excited about the prospect as I ever did when the first time I tried; maybe perhaps more so since I have the internet help me through the attempt this time around. Though yeah, it's a strange unfamiliar feeling overall. Something I haven't felt in a long time.
Jun 29: Summer...
Posted 10 years ago|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Melting
█ Temperature has been over 30C for the past couple of days and will be near that mark for the week. Some people like this kind of weather, spending time out in the... sun... I don't. I don't enjoy sweating in the heat, and the sun has a tendency of burning my skin (It always has to an effect). When I was younger I figured the patches of extremely dry and cracking areas of skin was due to my sweat, though really looking back it was the sun burning me to a crisp. Course add into the mix the occasional hay fever and abundance of insects that want my blood I have to wonder if people who enjoy summer are sadists.
█ Still trying to get back into the art thing with limited success. I've actually completed a few things over the past monthish that will be popping up in the gallery in the next few days. Usually I'm more diligent about posting stuff up as soon as it's done, I think it's more a result of me forcing myself to draw when I lack the energy to do so; as such feeling the need to post it up after it's done isn't there.
Though currently Heroes of the Storm has been eating away at my time, and it seems to be a game that I can probably stick around with unlike League of Legends. Granted to be fair I did play LoL for a fair bit... well, maybe not play so much as endure. I probably could ramble on for awhile about how LoLs game mechanics forces you to pay attention to way too many things, and how if you loose focus you're going to encounter a lot of toxic game behavior, but I think I'll abstain from that. Some people like all those extra details and nuanced mechanics, so much so that that LoL is considered an 'easy' game and Dota2 is where the real action is at. HotS turned the genre in the other direction, and the direction I find far more enjoyable. I suppose I would have stuck with LoL to this day though... if I didn't feel I had to report at least one other player in the match every other game.
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Melting
█ Temperature has been over 30C for the past couple of days and will be near that mark for the week. Some people like this kind of weather, spending time out in the... sun... I don't. I don't enjoy sweating in the heat, and the sun has a tendency of burning my skin (It always has to an effect). When I was younger I figured the patches of extremely dry and cracking areas of skin was due to my sweat, though really looking back it was the sun burning me to a crisp. Course add into the mix the occasional hay fever and abundance of insects that want my blood I have to wonder if people who enjoy summer are sadists.
█ Still trying to get back into the art thing with limited success. I've actually completed a few things over the past monthish that will be popping up in the gallery in the next few days. Usually I'm more diligent about posting stuff up as soon as it's done, I think it's more a result of me forcing myself to draw when I lack the energy to do so; as such feeling the need to post it up after it's done isn't there.
Though currently Heroes of the Storm has been eating away at my time, and it seems to be a game that I can probably stick around with unlike League of Legends. Granted to be fair I did play LoL for a fair bit... well, maybe not play so much as endure. I probably could ramble on for awhile about how LoLs game mechanics forces you to pay attention to way too many things, and how if you loose focus you're going to encounter a lot of toxic game behavior, but I think I'll abstain from that. Some people like all those extra details and nuanced mechanics, so much so that that LoL is considered an 'easy' game and Dota2 is where the real action is at. HotS turned the genre in the other direction, and the direction I find far more enjoyable. I suppose I would have stuck with LoL to this day though... if I didn't feel I had to report at least one other player in the match every other game.
May 10: Motivation and Energy
Posted 10 years ago|██████████|SANITY
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Reflecting
█ I tell myself that I outta write a journal at least once a month to get whatever is on my mind off my shoulders, but that doesn't always pan out. Harder to do when I haven't been too active here for several weeks now.
In retrospect I'd probably would have been more active recently but my energy levels were constantly under attack and as a result I found myself exhausted in general. Maybe some depression thrown in the mix. Overall I'm getting a little better at pinpointing some factors in why I feel the way I do at times. Basically things that I previously might as dismissed as insignificant I'm giving second looks at.
The first thing was taking a look at what it means to be an introvert. Sure I know how other people view it and have it defined, but I never really stopped to personalize it; I didn't know what my personal definition of introversion is. It's going to be different person to person, but I've made one main realization:
Most people damage my energy levels. This is an unfortunate, but it's a pretty real. The vast majority of people I end up interacting with ends up being an emotionally draining experience. Some are worse than others, some have minimal effect; but seldom do I come out of it feeling happier or more energized. Overall I'm a pretty private and personal, but every now and then I get people who dive straight at me with the 'friend crowbar'; who do everything in their power to be my friend. Sure they're trying to be nice, but at the same time their attempts at friendship just leaves me emotionally exhausted, frustrated, and often bitter. For me it doesn't matter if they're the nicest person in the world if me interacting with them leaves me utterly drained to the point where I want nothing to do with them. I think a lot of people can relate to this general sentiment, but I figure I'm pretty extra-sensitive when it comes to these interactions. Course there's people who are straight up jerks and assholes, but fuck those guys; I don't even bother, I go insane dealing with nice people as is. (but I know and have known nice people who have douche-bags for friends, and keep them as friends out of pity).
Now I do gain motivation and energy from most of the stuff I do like drawing, gaming, streaming and the like; but in general it's minimal. A gain is a gain though. The main problem arises from the above: The drain on my energy level some people inflict on me outstrip what I gain several times over. End result is I end up running on fumes, and really that's what leads to my burn-outs. I kind of think this is a semi-important revelation on my part, because previously I would semi-blame it on getting bored with art and the like; which really isn't true since my interest levels would always recover to what they were before the burn-out.
Since I am writing this journal, to an effect I've 'recovered' from the last instance of my energy levels being completely wrecked. I'm not exactly sure how I'd go about protecting myself from taking damage on that front. This is mostly because I'm not heartless or selfish enough to shut people out when all they're doing is expressing interest, or are themselves trying to stay sane. In the end I like being nice, I want to be nice and understanding; but I'm coming to realize for me to do so personally, comes at the cost of 'feeling alive.' That it steadily drains that feeling of "I can't wait to get started." and replaces it with "Eh... maybe tomorrow."
This would all be much easier if I was an extrovert and get all super energized and charged from hanging out with a bunch of people and having a good time, but in all honesty that kinda stuff intimidates me and certainly isn't in my comfort zone. I generally just like having quiet talks with one or a few people who don't end up sucking all the life out of me. It's all a crazy balancing act for me considering the nature of my online presence on FA, one that I wish could keep a bit more stable than it historically has been.
With all that said I should be putting out some art in the near future, and once again I thank all of you who pay attention to me and my random bouts of madness; it's still something for me that I find astonishing and overwhelming (but in a good way).
|██████████|ENERGY
Status: Reflecting
█ I tell myself that I outta write a journal at least once a month to get whatever is on my mind off my shoulders, but that doesn't always pan out. Harder to do when I haven't been too active here for several weeks now.
In retrospect I'd probably would have been more active recently but my energy levels were constantly under attack and as a result I found myself exhausted in general. Maybe some depression thrown in the mix. Overall I'm getting a little better at pinpointing some factors in why I feel the way I do at times. Basically things that I previously might as dismissed as insignificant I'm giving second looks at.
The first thing was taking a look at what it means to be an introvert. Sure I know how other people view it and have it defined, but I never really stopped to personalize it; I didn't know what my personal definition of introversion is. It's going to be different person to person, but I've made one main realization:
Most people damage my energy levels. This is an unfortunate, but it's a pretty real. The vast majority of people I end up interacting with ends up being an emotionally draining experience. Some are worse than others, some have minimal effect; but seldom do I come out of it feeling happier or more energized. Overall I'm a pretty private and personal, but every now and then I get people who dive straight at me with the 'friend crowbar'; who do everything in their power to be my friend. Sure they're trying to be nice, but at the same time their attempts at friendship just leaves me emotionally exhausted, frustrated, and often bitter. For me it doesn't matter if they're the nicest person in the world if me interacting with them leaves me utterly drained to the point where I want nothing to do with them. I think a lot of people can relate to this general sentiment, but I figure I'm pretty extra-sensitive when it comes to these interactions. Course there's people who are straight up jerks and assholes, but fuck those guys; I don't even bother, I go insane dealing with nice people as is. (but I know and have known nice people who have douche-bags for friends, and keep them as friends out of pity).
Now I do gain motivation and energy from most of the stuff I do like drawing, gaming, streaming and the like; but in general it's minimal. A gain is a gain though. The main problem arises from the above: The drain on my energy level some people inflict on me outstrip what I gain several times over. End result is I end up running on fumes, and really that's what leads to my burn-outs. I kind of think this is a semi-important revelation on my part, because previously I would semi-blame it on getting bored with art and the like; which really isn't true since my interest levels would always recover to what they were before the burn-out.
Since I am writing this journal, to an effect I've 'recovered' from the last instance of my energy levels being completely wrecked. I'm not exactly sure how I'd go about protecting myself from taking damage on that front. This is mostly because I'm not heartless or selfish enough to shut people out when all they're doing is expressing interest, or are themselves trying to stay sane. In the end I like being nice, I want to be nice and understanding; but I'm coming to realize for me to do so personally, comes at the cost of 'feeling alive.' That it steadily drains that feeling of "I can't wait to get started." and replaces it with "Eh... maybe tomorrow."
This would all be much easier if I was an extrovert and get all super energized and charged from hanging out with a bunch of people and having a good time, but in all honesty that kinda stuff intimidates me and certainly isn't in my comfort zone. I generally just like having quiet talks with one or a few people who don't end up sucking all the life out of me. It's all a crazy balancing act for me considering the nature of my online presence on FA, one that I wish could keep a bit more stable than it historically has been.
With all that said I should be putting out some art in the near future, and once again I thank all of you who pay attention to me and my random bouts of madness; it's still something for me that I find astonishing and overwhelming (but in a good way).
