2025-01-06

During the times when I took a break from writing creatively, I dabbled into other mediums such as music and visual arts.

I tried learning how to play math-rock, tried learning music production, and music theory where I'll be able to produce music and express myself without words. I bought a new amp and effect pedal so I can control the sound that I wanted to produce. Months passed by and it didn't really amount to anything except obtaining another layer of appreciation to music. I did not really produce any practical output that would even be characterized as a "song."

Going to visual arts was way more productive. With my basic understanding of Photoshop, I was able to create digital collages, explored other digital painting software until my attempts to explore digital painting led me to somewhat a profitable result. However, it did not meet the type of expression that I had been chasing after that can even be remotely similar to how I do it with the written word. In most cases, I always find myself writing a short abstract about my work as another layer of meaning-making as how I did it with The Infinities of Desire.

My fatal flaw has always been finding out the purpose of why I do the things that I do. The stronger my connection with the process of my work, the stronger for finding the purpose for doing that thing. At the same time this is the very thing that paralyzes me into doing the things I'm good at. I constantly look for a "reason" that conflicts with my own enjoyment of the process.

If someone would ask me today if I still want to be a poet, I would say yes but I want to be a poet who is not limited to the written word but still uses it as the main mode of expression. Then again, what the fuck does that mean?

At this point, I'm still finding the stance of being able to defend how I do what I want to do, which is writing. I still can't seem to reconcile the fact that deep down, I have no idea what I am actually doing. But I know it should not stop me. I know that not knowing what I am doing should not deter me because trying to understand what I do is difficult if I have no output to understand.

So this practice of daily logs is what I am trying to commit to. In a way to help myself take another step towards clarity, even if it takes years, should be able to take me where I want to go. I have an idea of where I want to go: somewhere I get a semblance of "freedom" just like what my recent writings has revealed to me. I do not impose a certain finality to what I am doing to free myself from my own expectations.

This is me letting myself do what I want without knowing where it will take me. This is me letting myself just do things and take it seriously.