Why I Already Appear to Suck at Blogging

Within the chaotic membrane of his mind, the voice of one man-boy stands alone… with others. 

Okay so I’ve really been lacking in the whole keeping this thing updated… thing. I think it’s largely because I have no idea what I’m doing and no idea what to write. I keep thinking I have to write with a very poignant purpose and forget that that’s not what this blog is for. This is supposed to be an outlet for me to write more but recently I’ve been treating it like my bank account and have just tried to avoid dealing with it at all costs. That’s just a poor play on my part. So thus I shall try and challenge myself and write on here every day this week (up to Friday). And now that I’m contractually obligated via my word on the interwebs, maybe I’ll actually do something. 

There really are a startling amount of both struggling and successful writers out there and this website also brings that to light. This too has contributed to my lack of willpower. It just feels overwhelming. It’s just a really awful positive feedback loop (fun science terms) where I see so many people with the same dream as I do and it just freaks me out to no end, which makes me not write and not improve, and then adds more self-doubt into the mix and repeats the process. Really just a shitty time to be had by all. So that should change hopefully. 

There’s just a lot of stuff I’ve gotta sort out right now and it’s doing my head in. Maybe I should just put it into perspective and accept that undergrads are essentially meaningless anyways. But then that opens me up to more options because who cares in the long run! Ahhhh who told me to make this blog this is going horribly. Who cares about career paths and future ambitions and stuff anyways? The civil engineers of the world? Well that’s already out the window, so maybe I should just relax. I have time, I think. Maybe I’ll go into business. Maybe I’ll go into film studies. Maybe I’ll stick with philosophy. Maybe I’ll go into creative writing. Maybe English lit. Who knows. Well I probably should I guess.

While I can appreciate the attempt at wit I was going for a couple months ago with the whole imbedded-gif-within-text thing, it really wasn’t that funny and was pretty forced. And realistically… Maybe I should try and let my writing work for me a bit more.

Man, this blog is a train wreck. Stay tuned for better things to come, can’t get any worse then these trivial ramblings of an extremely lost college student. Bear with me here (to be fair, I did apologize in advance).

The Problems with Wanting to be an Artist in Any Form

As I’m forging an internal war in deciding between what I believe to be a logical career path and what I believe I really want to do with my life, I’ve come across a series of problems that come with believing you’re destined to be an artist.

1. You have to have an exceptional amount of belief in yourself. With everyone telling you how difficult it is to earn a living as an artist in any form and how unlikely it is that you’ll amount to any sort of success, you have to be your own best friend and commit to working for the dream. This process becomes complicated given the natural insecurity that comes with the stereotypical artist profile. It’s quite easy to give up on the dream when presented with the sheer hopelessness that comes from all the competition for happiness in the arts.
2. There’s no set guide. Sure you can try to go to school and get training, read all the how-to books you want and try to break in to an incredibly tough field, but with all that specificity it’s a terrifying process. Self-doubt and hesitation will bear down on you and make you question the whole pursuit. The path will be different for everyone; no cookie cutter degree path here.
3. You’re going to be heckled by the engineering and science majors of the world. There will always be those that don’t believe in the arts as a steady way to make money (which has some valid arguments in and of itself), and they’ll like nothing more than to take you and your dreams down a peg. Your intelligence will be brought into question by people that just don’t get the struggle and the desire behind it. To them, the pursuit just won’t make sense.
4. You’re really going to have to work for it. No one is going to go out of their way to make sure you’re a success. No one will do it for you. They’ve got their own shit to deal with. You’re going to need to find a way to actuallymake a living and survive while putting in the work to progress as an artist. Sacrifices will have to be made in order for any sort of benefits to be reaped in the future; it won’t come easy.

After writing a bit about this I’ve realized that these are incredibly common problems that aren’t restricted to trying to be an artist, but also to just being a real grown up person in general. I’ll probably be able to add to this multiple times but whatever. Growing up sucks and that’s just the way it is. Cheers to all those trying to find their way.

RIP

This is one of my favourite parts of one of my favourite movies. Philip Seymour Hoffman who was in my mind one of the greatest actors I’ve had the chance of being entertained by passed away today of a heroin overdose. While this isn’t coming as a major shock given the nature of the addiction, there’s always a bit of a forced reflection that comes with death in any form. Over the duration of an illustrious career, Hoffman was able to show his depth and sensibility as an actor while battling personal demons constantly, and through his process he gave us a list of consistently exceptional performances. May a complicated and troubled soul rest in peace.

Reasons behind the blog (NOT TO BE FORGOTTEN)

Okay so a suitable first post for a blog like this would be to list the goals and reasons behind doing it. I think. So let’s do that. Here’s why I’m doing this: 

1. To poke at and hopefully get a bit of a rise out of the creative koala that exists within me that kicked the shit out of grade nine english class. Poor little guy’s been lulled into hibernation by a series of poorly chosen majors and minors. College sucks. Can koala’s even hibernate? Is that a thing? This is a bad start. Moving on.
2. To criticize and bitch about things I likely have absolutely no business criticizing and bitching about. This is all I do in real life. It is all I shall do on the internet. Know why? I’ll tell you through the art of the gif link. Yeah. Expect more of those on here. I repeat.
3. To find some focus through distraction (I know, I know) so I can bear down and actually work on things I need to work on to get to where I want to be in life.
4. To passively aggressively talk about people that won’t know about this blog. That’s what blogs are for… right? Thanks Oprah.
5. To document the stupid things I think about for later humiliation.
6. To satisfy my apparent insatiable lust for well-timed gif’s through links. Pretty well the only thing I’ve been able to figure out on here and I plan to beat it senselessly. Hah, that one’s not even a gif. Got em. 

All in all, I’m in it for some pretty selfish reasons and essentially for my own entertainment, but if I’m somehow able to conjure up a following out of the ether and entertain them a bit, well then that’s just a bunch more fun.