SuperListenMode: A Letter with more Artist Feelings

All part of the learning journey.

So 2018 hasn’t been super great or bad for me

It was a mixed bag of good and bad! Loads of burn out, disappointment and growing pains.

Some of the bad:

• Creative rut kept going for the whole year till now to various degrees since my 2017 conference talks. An internal crisis where I couldn’t find a way to meet all of my creative needs. I neglected this especially in my personal art. Experimented sometimes but I remain lost and confused.
• Plus I pushed myself too hard, crunched and burnt out at learning and doing vector art and UI art for work. I didn’t even particularly enjoy vector art or UI art. They were things I had to do and to do them well. It was a struggle up this mountain and I’m still climbing. I didn’t want to let anyone down. There were periods where I worked from home to avoid replacement buses and to get things done towards my need for standards. Work consumed my life for quite a long while this year.
• All this and a lot of stress-related physical symptoms resulted in the ongoing learning journey of figuring out how to relax and take care of my physical and mental health. Seeking a lot of health professionals for help. I struggle with this heaps. I have a lifetime habit of tunnel vision, being reserved and working too much.
• I felt distant, isolated, adrift and forgotten with most people, at work, let alone the industry. And the only industry thing I did was MIGW18. Loneliness was/is taking it toll on me.
• Family not great every other day or moment, as usual.
• Accepting heartbreak, rejection, loneliness, singledom and friends/acquaintances moving on and feeling more alien.
• getting too addicted to social media, youtube and streams when I’m bored, need to relax or to keep my mind off things

Some of the good:

• always learning more about myself, my boundaries and personal limits
• I’m average at vector art since I have to do it for work so yay, I’m better at it? A bit more confident and I don’t mind doing it now? I keep saying that because I prefer to do other art instead haha I still have lots to learn and room to struggle with vector art. 🙁
• cherishing the kind few lunch, work and game buddies I have!!! To be able to share and ramble about problems with them. <3 To focus on people who matter, care and value me ;P
• learning to let go of people who are indifferent and distant with me. I’m pretty reserved, picky, low energy, disinterested and aloof on my end though. :< When I feel up to it, sometimes I have my feeble, awkward attempts to be friendly too. Usually it doesn’t work out and that’s okay. Socialising…ahhhh!
• realising how I need people to explicitly tell me how they’re feeling or what they need because sometimes I’m off the mark reading people. But many aren’t great at taking initiative and being direct about what they want, myself included. For me, it’s because I don’t see the point or ability to be acknowledged or make a difference.
• that I’m caring less when I’m keeping distant and/or cutting people out of my small trusted circles. My respect, trust, time and energy needs to be earned over a long period of time after much deliberation + gut feeling. There have been people who have lost my respect and trust and I’m better at letting them go and keeping them distant. They don’t have time for me so I don’t have time for them anymore in terms of priority. Especially if I’m always an optional person to talk to for them.
• slowly taking more responsibility for my mental and physical well being. I’m not great at it yet! It’s hard and scary! It’ll take considerable time to get years of bad habits and emotional baggage managed better :’)
• the only sense of community I felt was when I posted those Speaker BurpDoodles. This might be seen as a bad thing too ;P Gosh I need to make it more fun for me next time I do it.
• I’m getting better at embracing what I *really* want. I always have two parties going at each other: my critical voice telling me I need to have more friends/experiences, figure out my life and I need to get a social life while my heart/body just wants to retreat from people, practice self care, spend time with a few good friends, enjoy and learn art on my own. I think I need to follow my heart, well-being and my needs.
• that I need to manage my critical voice and work with it…somehow.

My 2019 creative focus

…is to explore new things, better my technical skills, have fun and fail fast with personal art on a regular/weekly basis next year. Enjoy time away from social media. Be open to opportunities. Keep art for duty/work/business versus art for myself balanced. Figure out how to recover and heal from burn out, prevent it and get out of this creative rut.