Hi Eli!
My time online is going to be sporadic and somewhat limited for the next week, just to let you know that I might not immediately respond and why (this is on top of my hesitance to write back immediately, which is just a skill I've learned from saying too many off-the-cuff things -- sometimes a necessity if you're psychically sensitive and have mischief-makers hanging around). I have a big portfolio due in Drawing class next Tuesday, and I'm resistant to doing it (even though I did work on it today for most of my waking hours). I'm just trying to take care of myself (writing is part of this) and work through the resistance -- in particular, sleep enough and eat enough of the right things, and try and do what I can. I actually didn't go to either class today because after waking at 5:40 I found my first class unexpectedly cancelled and myself with nothing to do for an hour and a half (even the library wasn't open yet, and I didn't have my drawings to work on), so I came home instead of waiting (I couldn't really do much other than buy things and hang out in the atrium, and my time is more valuable than that).
I think a large part of my resistance to doing this work has to do with being pushed out of my comfort zone and into personal storytelling which, while authentic to me, opens me to judgment or isolation by my peers -- the same dilemma that plagued me in Creative Writing. I'm not a Meg Cabot. (Disclaimer: I have never read one of her books. I just shelve them.) I don't think this will be a really big deal, as I've broached the topic of mental illness within that class before, and I'm not the only one to have gone through it. I also have gotten the clue that I may not be the only one with otherkin experience there.
I just think that the drawings I'm doing are bringing up some old issues -- such as the difference between working with my brain before medications as versus after. If Archer were to be still around, I'd think she could relate. Things are much more rational now. Clean, crisp, industrial; rather than organic and slippery and loose. I'm more in control of my life, and having some good insights which were foggy -- or just disconnected -- before I began this third medication, but at the same time the "mess"...isn't really a mess anymore, and I feel like some of my creativity is hampered. But this has applied both in Writing and Art.
Back when I was obviously ill, I was driven -- largely because I had things to communicate which I felt I couldn't communicate -- and it was easier just to break free and paint, or type out a quick sketch, you know? And now I'm depending on reference photos and perspective theory and the like -- at least with the Drawing. And now I
can communicate, at least reasonably well, and being able to do so removes some of the desperation and isolation from the act of making. Which is great for me; possibly good for my art because it doesn't scream "tortured" anymore, but still, I haven't been practicing as much as I should.
The acts of expression are still doable, but the reality aspect is stronger and I feel less able to improvise, because I know I can't help but be somehow inaccurate (which...leads into Surrealism, I'm guessing, with making things
intentionally inaccurate). Then there is also hiding or or downplaying some aspects while emphasizing others, which all goes into the creation of meaning, or the manipulation that takes reality and turns it into metaphor. That never used to concern me -- it's a core belief of mine that we have not yet met truth, and no one is completely right all the time (even as much as I'm sure many of us would like to be). At the same time, though, I'm hearing other people tell me that my views are "objective" -- which is a state which I would still likely say is impossible to attain from within incarnation -- but at the same time I can see myself as being much closer to objective than any state I've been in before.
I did bring up the "cyborg" thing here a long time ago, didn't I? That instead of grafting machines onto human bodies, what we are (largely) doing is altering them through medications and drugs which affect them in certain ways. In my case I'm not really cybernetic (unless you count my interface with computers and the Web <!-- s

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-->), but I do feel...somewhat more rational, objective, "industrial," mechanized. Something synthetic is affecting the way I think, in a measured, controlled, and constant way. I'm not anti-psychiatry, because without psychiatry I'd in all likelihood be much more of a mess than I am now, if I were even still around. But medications are double-edged -- not to be used unless really called for -- and the doctors don't necessarily know what effect a specific drug will have on a specific patient. They also don't usually know the intricacies of the experience of taking that drug, because they never did it themselves and/or the drug won't affect them.
I couldn't cope with my life, before. Now I can cope, at least much more effectively; but I find myself both materially and psychologically affected, and it's kind of difficult to handle the loss of my old way of being. I don't cry over it, though the old "me" would; and I'm very glad I don't have to deal with many of the effects of illness that I did. It's just that this state I'm in is not
entirely preferable to my natural state. There are things which came with ease to me before which are now difficult -- or maybe it's just that I'm in advanced practice of them, so they're no longer "play."
In essence it's like I'm dealing in the same life, with a different brain, which has different aptitudes; and I don't have the option of re-living my childhood to see what it's good at. I know what it
used to be good at. Then it kind of broke down and was salvaged and treated, and now it's different, and I'm still pursuing the same goals built up over the 20 years before I knew that minds could change -- not just in opinion but in process and functionality -- or that mine ever would. Right now I'm trying to see if I can regain some of the functionality I had before medications -- sort of a rewiring process. If that doesn't work, I should really get on trying to be healthier so that I don't need as much medication, and then I can see where I stand with my writing and art.
I'm not sure...maybe what I'm experiencing is some form of growth, and that's why it's this uncomfortable. Maybe I should start some form of cybernetic-organism series or something.
Elinox Wrote:I majored in English anyway and now I write as part of my job, although it's not fiction.
What kind of things do you write? I briefly thought about Technical Writing, before I realized it was probably too dry for me. <!-- s

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Elinox Wrote:So my advice is WRITE ALL THE THINGS! You should obviously then go back through everything with a fine-toothed comb, but then you'd at least have everything. <!-- s
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This made me giggle when I read it. <!-- s

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I do try and keep up a writing practice, though most of it is just me chronicling what I'm doing -- or wanting/trying to do -- because I think things out best in text. I suppose that I am also learning how to think things out visually as well, though. Certainly, the medication issue is more easily communicated visually than verbally.
The drawings I'm working on are pushing me to work through some of the reasons why I'm even taking classes, and what got me to this point. This, in turn, is showing me that maybe I shouldn't be in classes anymore -- or, that maybe I don't need them anymore; that my time could be better used outside of the format of academia. I have one class in mind for Spring: that is Beginning Watercolor, and that is only within the community-college format because it's cheaper and more long-term than my local Art Center. I'd just have to take it Pass/No Pass, if I don't want my GPA affected. I suppose that might affect me if I did go on to an MFA, but I'm thinking that's unlikely, at the moment. I've also been advised to take Beginning Figure Drawing before I advance too far in the Drawing series (this would also clear me for an Animation certificate), but thinking about carting those materials
plus Watercolor materials back and forth is a bit of a stretch.
What I need to do, if I want to be hired as a writer, is work on my portfolio; and I don't have a lot of time to do that while I'm blogging and drawing and preparing PowerPoint presentations and taking martial arts classes and researching career paths and viewing job notices and working. The homework thing is an unnecessary stress -- though, to be real about it, one or two classes bombed will not hurt my GPA very much. I just hate letting my teachers down.
If you read this far, thank you for listening. <!-- s

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--> It's now quite late where I am...and I've got work tomorrow. Ick. But it's only five hours, I guess. Still...ick. Hopefully, I won't have more than two hours on desk...