Plenty of existential dread/crisis here so I’m curious:

• Why are you still kindly following me?
• Is it for my comics? My art?
• Are my comics meaningful to anybody and worth doing artistic wise at all? Why? I’ve been trying to figure that out since last year at least.
• Since peeps are unfollowing on twitter & are more at instagram, why are you sticking around? (It’s interesting to note that I still have Instagram on my phone :‘) )
• What are you interested in seeing more of?
  • Where do you think I excel? Why? How?
  • Where do you think I have potential to grow? Why? How?

Email me if you’re not comfortable sharing here; Thank you <3.

Gosh finally I have the gumption to ask. I’ve been wanting to ask for ages but I wasn’t sure if I was emotionally ready to listen. I don’t know if I am actually ready yet but I will take my time to read them all (:

Doing my own personal soul searching.

Update 22nd November:

Thank you so much for your lovely support and sharing your thoughts [via social media comments]! Humbled and grateful! Goodness and absolutely stunned with warm fuzzies! People are ultra complimentary, encouraging, sweet and understanding and I don’t feel deserving. ;___; [Twitter] [Facebook] [Instagram]

Feeling more positive, hopeful vibes now <3

Gosh I was scared to ask because I don’t know what I am doing and wanted to consider more suggestions on how I can be better with an open mind. :’)

And I did not think my limited perspective is anything to note! Really insightful and encouraging for me to know that some kind peeps relate and appreciate my work because it’s so easy to feel isolated and disconnected on social media. Hey, I’ve been living within my own mind heaps, pouring myself into my reflective & rambly blog posts and art. Running in sad circles in my head.

As much as I do consider and are open to what other people think, ultimately my own thoughts and values have the final say. If people just tell  me what to do…I don’t really want to do it on that basis alone. I’d do some gut checking, investigating and research on my own before anything else…so don’t worry I’m not actively trying to please people haha

Been running around in circles in my mind too much with this rut, wanting to let go of what I perceive people expect of me versus what I want to learn and create for myself.  I don’t really have a direction with my comics and blog which is fine but there’s so many things I want to artistically skill up & focus on I plan to work through too. I’m not sure what I want right now and what my strengths are…thanks to my low opinion of myself. Indeed, a lot of things to unpack.

I have a lot of food for thought since I’m insecure and taking unfollows and words on the screen too seriously again even though logically I know social media is not too great for consistent, meaningful and contextual connection. For me it gets noisy, passive, full of personas and impersonal…so it’s not helpful if this is the default human interaction I get. It’s become slightly less so thankfully to the very few friends I have but emotionally I’m not in a great headspace yet.

Emotionally, I can’t help but fall into the negative, insecure spiral of self comparison sometimes, especially when I’m feeling creatively stuck for this long :’) I need to care less about what others expect. It’s an ongoing journey. I keep forgetting to stuff that noise. Practice some mindfulness :<

I irrationally dread social media sometimes…and then when I check it, it’s a mixture of humbling, encouraging and heart warming gratitude when people interact with my posts whilst feeling isolated and sad upon the general superficial nature of social media. Maybe I won’t check my feed at all until I’m ready to this time.

Increasingly I find that I need some distance, to hide away and breaks to manage and not get sucked into the silly social currency and perfectionist/self comparison mindset [hence my delays in responding…thank you for understanding]. The anticipatory anxiety I get sometimes. I wish I can hide those meaningless follower numbers. Makes me super glad I can’t see statistics in the blog post section in WordPress unlike Blogspot (:

I don’t even like the term “social currency” – I really hate it! I’ve ranted about this several times before, people are not collectibles!! I do feel obliged sometimes myself to follow back but I strive to stick to my personal principles. I don’t follow people just because I feel pressured to. So in turn, I don’t want people to follow me because they feel obliged to! It’s all good, I just need to let the silly numbers go – honestly they don’t really measure anything substantial as most are dead accounts by now ;P

It is what is what it is…there’s still that underlying desire to reach and interact with more people, stubbornly so in a genuine and natural way. I care more about who’s interacting than the numbers themselves as I think about it…and understandably I notice how people come and go and don’t interact anymore. It’s normal and fine…and admittedly I do feel a mild sense of loss and rejection. I try to hide and let it pass. I keep forgetting that most people are lurkers and have nothing to say [like me] or don’t even check social media…because there’s this thing called real life! :’)

I emphasise that it’s increasingly difficult for me to create personal work to please and pander to people the more I get wiser to what works for me anyway. I usually don’t do subject matter I’m not interested in…the exceptions are when I’m willing to try and learn something extremely out of my comfort zone.  I’m also feeling this pressure to keep doing better and keep things to my schedule but I don’t think I’m progressing anywhere this past year in my personal work. Been pushed out of my comfort zone, struggling and learning at work though. I guess that’s a reason why I’m doing comfort zone art in my personal time in the past year.

Usually I’m okay just posting and hiding since I do what I want anyway…I just have this long, ongoing rut at the moment to work through so I wanted to ask and consider more perspectives with this post. :’)

Gosh I sound sad, desperate and confused! Well I am! ;P

I’m fishing for a bigger audience right?! Not necessarily…I do want to grow a more engaged audience instead [turns out from this post I might actually have a lurking, small one?! ] but I don’t want to actively and consciously chase it! I have some personal health stuff to work through too so I’ve been taking things super slow and making a buffer of work while I figure myself out a bit more.

As you know I feel lost, alone, confused, frustrated, depressed, apathetic/indifferent about things and have been in a creative rut for ages…so I when I finish loose ends and when I’m ready, I plan to put my head down, keep failing fast and experiment more to find that fun and joy in creating and learning again.

Striving to grow artistically yet I have been paralysed with what I want to go deep into next. I don’t want to only do my silly personal comics. Choices!!

Part of the journey and struggle, I know :’)

Digressing. I have much to work through. Got to keep trying.
Thank you so much for your support again! Thanks for bearing with me as I ramble about this and my feelings as it’s happening haha
I feel much more encouraged and hopeful ^_^ <3

Art & Comic Patreon | Ko-fi