#and ive had that blog since 2016 so theres old art that i posted back then if you scroll far enough lol

[holy-reference-in-a-username]

CAN WE SEE MORE OLD ART PRETTY PLEASE WITH CHERRIES ON TOP?

2012-2016, dont have a great idea of when these are from bc i only started signing my art with a date in 2018. HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU SIGN ART ALONG WITH THE DATE.

all of these are 2016. can you tell tom is my favorite.

had a bunch of reject/fusion ocs (also 2016)

got back into ew a bit back in 2020.

and then now!

[winderrific-moved]

im mass deleting my very old 2016 posts and im. almost heartbroken but not the way you think. (tw for. i guess family death, toxic relationships and mentions of trauma under the cut)

i joined in january. i posted 3 pieces of art then and everything else was reblogs. February has probably the most reblogs, it was rlly a pain to delete it all since mass editor only allows for 100 deletes at a time, march was just as crowded

april only had a handful of posts.

that was the month my first grandpa died, and the month i got into one of the worst relationships i was ever in. the lack of reblogs and happy tags made me awfully sad, because i get to see from outside just how bad of a mental state i was in then.

may didnt have a single post.

june has a couple as well, but not more than 20. thats when i was taken away and hospitalized because of my deteriorating mental state and outed to my family while having to deal with toxic friends and relationships.

i deleted those posts now

july has 5 posts. from the couple of hours i was allowed to leave the psychiatric hospital but theyre gone now too

there isnt a single post in august.

only about 20 posts in september

october is when they begin rolling back in a bit, theres maybe 50 posts at most

november has twice as many, but only because i was in a new school all by myself, with not a single friend

december is almost the same as november

its. really weird looking back at that year, because i can confidently say that its the worst year ive lived so far, with 2020 closely behind. i made so much progress since then, but i. feel sorry. i feel sorry and im angry that i had to deal with so much at once when i was only 16. and that it didnt even end after i left the youth center because i was still being harassed, used and manipulated, and i was barely aware of it.

in a way, i guess im kinda proud of myself too. whether its hard for me to admit or not, i have come an awful long way since then, and im infinitely more stable and capable of handling myself than i was the, and even though i still have troubles nowadays, im. happy that i know ways of helping myself that arent "dissociate for the next 6 hours and forget every single thing and never actually deal with it" or "sleep 2 hours a day every day for 3 years straight to avoid nightmares and flashbacks."

somehow, i think cleaning out my blog has been oddly therapeutic.

[ask-shakespearehigh]

Q&A post with the Mods!!!!

This is going to be a long one oh boy

How strict is the delineation of creative control vis-a-vis characters/plays between the mods? (@pedanticlecturer)

We generally have the plays split up along lines of “what we know”— we have a list at the very beginning of the blog. Sometimes we’ll draw the others’ characters (mostly me drawing some of Star’s…) but even then the final say on characterization is up to the “main” mod for that play — mod aster

what aster said -- mod star

What is your favorite play? What is your favorite character in terms of how they were written in the source material? (@pedanticlecturer)

I think my favorite play overall is Macbeth, just because I like the vibes (and the fact that I too could kill Macbeth), the fact that you don’t say it’s name in theatres, and the fact that it’s a play I did a full read through and analysis of in class. Favorite character? Puck from Midsummer. — mod aster

uhhhh,, hmm. ive always had a soft spot for midsummer since i saw it with aster esp bc of how fun the costumes were. of the comedies it has the largest potential to be the most visually pleasing bc of the concept of fairies,,,and im gay and dramatic so i love that. id die if i got to costume design for midsummer,,,or be in it,,,yeah. fav character. hmm. probably mercutio?? i recently saw a version of romeo and juliet where mercutio was played by a woman and oh my god it was amazing!!! not to mention mercutio’s portrayal in baz luhrmann's INCREDIBLE version of r n j!!! (I based my mercutio design on him) he just spends the entire time making dick jokes. love that. -- mod star

How do you answer asks so fast? I mean it's great but I'm impressed 😂 (Anon)

Personally, it’s a mix of: notifications on, quick drawing speed, and using the blog to avoid my class work — mod aster

aster is fast and (as you can see from all of my answers) im lazey -- mod star

Are there any elements/characters of the plays you're covering that you would have liked to work into this blog's plot, but couldn't due to the constraints of the setting or the synthetic nature of the blog? (@pedanticlecturer)

I wanted to make everyone gay but unfortunately due to plot constraints we have to have some hets but that wont stop me from making it lgbt as possible. -- mod star

I did want to make The Tempest more of a central play, but it just didn’t translate well. Similarly, other supernatural elements like the witches in Macbeth. This isn’t so much a constraint mentioned, but my own time/energy means that I want to show the Macbeth backstory, in a specific format, but I can’t right now— mod aster

Is there a hierarchy of import when it comes to each play's individualized impact on shakespeare high's general arc? If so, what plays are crucial to the foundation of the story? Which ones did you do mostly for shits and giggles? (@pedanticlecturer)

This is phrased like an ACT question and i might not answer it right so sorry in advance but: mod aster and i only selected a few plays for each of us to do given we dont know all of shakespeare’s works, but we tend to put more emphasis on the the more well known. But it also comes down to 1. How much we have plotted out for each play and 2. What the followers ask about most. Our two most popular are hamlet and macbeth bc people are familiar w those but around march caesar always becomes relevant again. I didnt even have designs for some of the characters until someone asked about them. -- mod star

I would say the same as star— it generally comes down to what people ask about. I will say that the overall plot is sort of separated into “has happened” and “is happening”. Like, the human potion of Midsummer, Julius Caesar, and Macbeth are all in the “aftermath” portion, while Twelfth Night, Hamlet, and Romeo and Juliet, among others, are happening. We’re trying to incorporate as much as we can, and I don’t think any of them were really put in without some thought.— mod aster

What personal significance does shakespeare hold in ur guys' lives? (@pedanticlecturer)

I go to a theater school rn and so ive dealt w shakespeare (although not all of them) it also helps that i was in loves labours lost last year as moth and that i read hamlet and r n j. Theres also a theater in my state that always does One Big Shakespeare per season and they always do them super well!!! My love for shakespeare probably started w seeing midsummer at that theater w mod aster!!! So. Theater kid rights!! -- mod star

To be honest, I got back into Shakespeare Because of the blog. I’ve been friends with some people that got really Pretentious about Shakespeare, and it kinda put me off of it. I did have a book of abridged plays (the plays’ plots written out in prose, basically) that I read as a kid, which is what got me into not only the plots of a lot of the plays, but also the idea of having them illustrated. And, same as star, the theater in state does the One Big Shakespeare— and they tend to do some really cool things with the costumes, setting them in diff time periods. I haven’t been able to see any lately since I’ve moved, but they still slap. — mod aster

🥰😘💙🥰🥰💜💟🥰I 😍💗💚😍😍LOVE🖤🖤 YALL ♥️♥️🧡💛💚💝❣️💕💘💖💗💓💞💝❤️💛💜 okay now i have a question i swear— how long have the two of you been doing art??? and what were your first shakespeare plays??? (@hellaghosts)

Uhh i started drawing when i was like idk 12 and i have the giant boxes of sketchbooks to prove it!!! I moved to digital art at abt 14-15 but mostly stayed traditional until this yr when i got a Neat New Tablet so some of my sketchbooks are sitting abandoned rip. My first shakespeare was either romeo and juliet or midsummer nights dream and i love both of them v much!!! I have a very old piece of art that i did for r n j for my freshman class assignment on it and it hasnt aged well alsdjfjafd circa 2016 i think??? -- mod star

Oh man. I started drawing when I was about 10, but it was Bad. I don’t think I got much into drawing again until I was about 14? Sometime around the end of middle school/beginning of high school. I would say I started getting into drawing as more than doodling/coloring edits sometime around 2015-16? I would draw on my iPad with my finger, then I got a tablet for my computer, and now I pretty much stick to my iPad with an Apple Pencil. My first Shakespeare play was….. uh…… probably Midsummer???? I have No idea. We would go to plays when I was little, so I honestly don’t remember if I saw others before. It may have been Romeo and Juliet— I had that book where it was the original and the “modernized” with the little dog that explained things— which, if you know it makes sense, but if you don’t is probably a bonkers answer. — mod aster

Do you think this blog has like? An overarching thesis (be it b/c intentionally or simply b/c ur own take on the world has bled thru to the point where u believe it’s central to the piece at this point)? (@pedanticlecturer)

Not gonna lie, I had to read that like three times AND dm you to figure out what you were asking from us and all I have is “be gay, respect women, write your own happy endings”. — mod aster

This blog started with an ides of march shitpost and you think we have enough brain energy to write a whole thesis? I projected feelings of found family onto my half of the blog but idk if that counts. Be gay do crime 420 69 -- mod star

What’s the nature/rough dynamic of ur relationship? How do y’all know each other? (@pedanticlecturer)

Met mod aster when i was like 4 and even tho we didnt live close we became like, best friends although the Best part didnt start until we were like 13-ish and eventually we talked like non stop (about anime and homestuck. Yknow. 13 year old kid things) and we didnt see each other a lot bc of Distance and now its even worse bc aster is in colleg.,e but we consider each other siblings regardless of family bc we’re adopted into our own respective families so that bled over into our friendship and it would feel weird calling him anything other than my brother now. We’ve seen each other at our best and worst and if you really want a good insight on what we’re like as siblings watch griffin and justin mcelroy’s overview video of catlateral damage wherein i am griffin and he is the long suffering justin. -- mod star

Star is basically my long distance sibling and functionally the only cousin I recognize bc like their parents are basically an aunt and uncle and like our dads look enough alike that we’ve both accidentally gotten the wrong dad for a hug or similar so like. Anyways yeah Star is the Griffin to my Justin, complete with our absent middle brother who we love dearly— mod aster

Dubiously relevant q but what kind of music do y’all listen to when u do art (if that is indeed a habit either of u partake in) (@pedanticlecturer)

It can depend on the piece? I was working on some (unrelated) oc prints that were song-focused, and for those I just listened to said song on loop. Sometimes I have playlists. Sometimes I’ll just be in a Mood and throw a song on loop. But a lot of time for the blog, I’ll listen to The Adventure Zone for the billionth time, because I have Too Much Attention. I’ve also, on request from Star, linked the most recent “loop song”.— mod aster

I tend to obsess over the same like 3 songs every few weeks so those get listened to on repeat but it also depends on the tone of what im drawing or who im drawing i might genre switch bc of that. If im drawing ophelia i stick to lana del rey and if im drawing hamlet its the neighborhood, horatio is sufjan stevens etc. i have categorized,. Most of the characters i draw into different songs/genres/energies of music but not like i ever follow that. Sometimes i just pull up a really long nonsense video and forget to draw. Essentially: ¯\_(���)_/¯ -- mod star

How’d y’all come up with ur pseudonyms? (@pedanticlecturer)

I love space so much and my main blog is starryeydsailor space gay rights!! Im also tiny and full of energy and bright so basically i;m star -- mod star

Uhhhh i was like “hey i want to do uhhhhhh flower?” And then I google searched flower names until I found one I liked —- mod aster

How did you end up deciding the rough timeline of events in canon? (@pedanticlecturer)

It’s mostly determined by like. How we choose per story? If that makes sense. Like, we just take story by story, and decide “is it happening, has it happened, and when?” And then we fit them together in relation to each other just by dint of. All existing at once. Like, I knew I wanted Macbeth to be in aftermath, because like, even though there’s no murder, the way I’ve translated it to the AU is still kinda heavy, and it’s something that I don’t know that I could do properly if it were happening right now. Also, it’s more interesting IMO to have them at different times. Tl;dr we wing it per story and slot them together— mod aster (mod star agrees I just can word better, in theory)

If you could tell the story of shakespeare high in a different format than an ask blog, would you? Obviously y'all are making very good use of the format, but would you want to write this as a animated series or like? a comic book? or is the form inseparable from the story? (@pedanticlecturer)

I kinda wanted to do a webcomic or maybe to plot develop through like, animatics but the element of surprise comes from the asks we get and really makes us think so the blog is a good start. We didnt think we’d get this far -- mod star

Pretty much what Star said— there are certain elements where it’d be neat to do as a comic or as an animatic. Like, the fantasy dream is like, an anthology webcomic of each story, where you can like, see other characters in the background and stuff. But to be honest, we develop a lot by what we’re asked— there was a post about developing worldbuilding by being asked questions and then pretending you’ve thought about the answer, and it’s not far off. Personally, it’s hard to just lay out a story, because I have a whole WORLD and what’s relevant? What are people interested in? It’s by getting questions that I can then focus in on an area to develop. And yeah, we Super didn’t think we’d get this far lmao — mod aster

Any headcanons about your characters that you don't think will ever come up on the blog through asks or plot posts? (@pedanticlecturer)

I could make a whole separate post for this!!!!! Mostly its voice headcanons (and by mostly i mean like 1 or 2) or relationship hcs!!!! -- mod star

Honestly same. I don’t think I have voice headcanons for mine, though I bet I could find some. I’ve got a bunch of miscellaneous headcanons that just kinda float around, but like they’re scattered, too numerous for this post, and also not always things I’m sure are canon yet.— mod aster

[luisneer]

selected tweets 2016-17

These are tweets from my first @luisneer twitter account. Recently I made a new twitter account with the same username, after having deleted my account and having been without twitter for several months. These tweets are from August 2016 to March 2017, which was most of my first year of college at Shepherd University, in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. I don't go to Shepherd anymore; I transferred to West Virginia University, in Morgantown, WV, after my second semester. My tweets from late March 2017 to [July or August] 2017, when I deleted my twitter, were not archived. 

I'm creating this blog post so the world will have access to some of my tweets from the deleted @luisneer, in case they have any merit as literature. I'm still not sure if I will continue to use twitter in 2018/the future. Usually when I use twitter I feel like I'm actually wanting to be doing something else, but I don't know what; or wanting to be using "another app" that doesn't exist. Twitter generally seems bad for me. Questions about my tweets August 2016-March 2017 can be directed at luisneer@gmail.com. Thank you

    2016

   morgantown has ~48 vape shops

 **morgantown has ~480 vape shops

 siri has werner herzog-like inflections

 considering changing outfits when i take several walks in one day (so nobody thinks im a serial killer, stalker, spy, alien)

 think i remember ~5% of things i said today

 imagined vague connection btwn 'vitamin d' and 'reptar'

 felt distinctly that i was a monkey or chimpanzee while crouching in the corner of my dorm room eating peanuts out of a jar

 just thought (as a request to my mom) 'fax me my skateboard...'

 looked at toilet in bathroom stall with expression of 'utter terror' for what felt like ~15 seconds while it flushed

 listening to bright eyes with headphones at house show

 feel that the toothpaste i use is advancing decay of my teeth

 feel 100% certain that i could train myself to use telepathy to operate my phone during classes

 enjoying the sensation of my right leg 'falling asleep' during psychology class (left foot is also 'asleep')

 felt 'sociopathic' after eye contact w library worker who watched me pick up & pocket a pair of apple headphones someone had left on a chair

 left stolen apple headphones on gray bench across the street from my dorm

 repeatedly placed/removed sunglasses while walking in hallway

 strong desire to remove all positive patterns from my life and perpetuate/embrace all negative ones

 feel that my laptop 'knows' which parts of its screen im looking at

 in winchester, VA

 thought of my own music as having 'no compelling audible elements'

 thought of myself as being legally named 'the fuck up', then couldnt remember my actual name

 successfully, i feel, duplicated 'sociopath facial expression' during eye contact with arch-nemesis in stairwell

 ive taken 13800mg ibuprofen since i got to college

 feel compelled to ask my 9 yr old brother for advice re 'college-level' personal issues

 feel smart after sitting on couch in painting studio + reading art magazines for 2 hours

 persistent notion that 100% of students at my college personally hate me

 psychology professor muttered something like 'scary snake... endocrine system...'

 feeling heavily drugged/sedated in psych class

 psych professor seems obsessed with/terrified by snakes

 imagined kanye smoking crystal meth and tweeting something like 'please help me... cant feel mouth... need help'

 saw a moth at open mic, thought about god

 experiencing difficulty trying to smile

 enjoying using numerous cliches ('the case is closed', 'taking a step back', 'harsh realities') in an essay

 intrigued by conversation i had 9 hrs ago w/ 2 boys who countered my tone (calm, eloquent) exactly by being loud and rude in a friendly way

 felt simultaneously really cute and really lonely while giggling with my mouth closed in french class

 imagined kanye inventing the word 'compactualize' and using it in a sentence during a televised interview

 enjoyed 8-sentence john updike bio in norton lit anthology

 perceived person standing outside bathroom stall occupied by me could 'sense', via something like echolocation, that i was/am depressed

 spoke to french professor in what felt like a distinct persona/alternate luis neer called 'marge simpson voice' luis neer

 feel confidently that the public debut of 'marge simpson voice' luis neer was a success

 feel that 'marge simpson voice' luis neer is the culmination of an unconscious process that initiated in my mind maybe 3-5 years ago

 i want to identify/analyze additional alternate luis neers

 i dont like videos

 i came to college and got weirder, better at writing, more arrogant, more defeated, more sensible

 simultaneously feel that i should run 3 miles and that, at this moment, i would be incapable of running any distance

 feel urged to draw new attention to my 'marge simpson voice' tweets

 huge power outage at shepherd lol

 realized theres no such thing as a 'nation'

 remembered ive blown off obligations to several people, not just one person, so my irresponsibility doesnt 'have a focus', felt comforted

 feel that my follower count is 'crystallized' / will never increase or decrease ever again

 struggled to convert 'stick-and-poke' to past tense during conversation in line at sheetz

 feel it would be pleasurable to take a donut + bottle of coca-cola from this sheetz via armed robbery

 crossed busy road, felt really surprised i didnt get hit by a car, also i wasnt wearing glasses, was walking to sheetz, bought an icee

 laughed alone in my dorm thinking that i should print out a picture of barack obama to put on my wall

 drank from separate glasses containing soymilk, coffee, iced coffee, apple juice, cranberry juice, water, sprite for dinner/breakfas

 just thought 'from adorno to zizek' sans context while shitting

 opened gmail, emailed my father, closed gmail, opened gmail again, viewed email to my father, forwarded it to myself

 'camcorder' would be a good band name

 i thought arnold palmer had already died

 willem dafoe doesnt make me uncomfortable

 i want to stop being mean

 i hate bfs but i want to be someones bf

 wishing i was in a car with friends and no cellular service

 tangled up in myself and others

 twin peaks is depicted as a small town but its population is greater than that of every city in west virginia including the state capital

 eating shark

 thought of my own intelligence as 'frightening'

 thought while walking to class that ginger ale should be made public domain

 had the stitches on my chin removed today, touched the scar tissue for the first time

 i miss being in therapy

 i love carpet

 i love carpet !!

 just thought about my own tweets and lol'd

 mood lately very fragile

 this is what i get for staying up til 5 am

 all night i've felt a wave of dread swelling up, now it's really hitting me

 sound of laughter in public still frightening + unnerving

 my instinct for when to unfriend people on facebook has adapted so that i unfriend people over statuses that make me feel no emotions at all

 fuck, im feeling so much terror

 gucci mane was born 3 days before conor oberst

 the other day i mentioned that i was a poet and this vape guy interrupted me to say "and you didnt know it" and i went fucking nuclear

 interacted with mailman who was picking up mail as i was trying to mail chapbooks, he didnt notice at first that i was talking to him

 what if old people have secrets

 my dad is making me root for a football team but im in pain emotionally

 i feel guilty in general

 thought of my poem "portrait of a nation without any people" as the "lead single" for my full length; it appeared in potluck 14 months ago

 im close friends with satan rn

 feel like travis scott never intended for people to spell his name with a $

 from now on every time i get honey on something ill list the thing in this thread

 finger

 desk

 coffee cup exterior

 pajama pants

 knee

 carpet

 chin

 phone

 shirt

 shoe

 thought that my elderly geography prof. moves by "shuffling"

 feeling shorter, broader

 the only part of the new bright eyes box set i want is the booklet

 is there a booklet? i know there are nvr b4 sn photos

 the song "lime tree" came to conor oberst in a dream

 i like citing things in MLA

 i write essays by pretending im werner herzog

 doesnt seem to be getting later

 lit professor gave my project (sequence of 6 sonnets) a C, i wish she would have gotten me expelled, shelley + ginsberg both were expelled

 heard someone in another room ask "where's wal-mart?" as if wal-mart were a person whose location could change

 i think i just swallowed a filling while eating popcorn, i am very scared, please help

 crazy how things get worse

 there are people on my floor having tons of fun and im upset

 bit my mattress while sitting in the chair next to my bed

 weird that chance the rapper only has 2.4 million followers when he's sort of one of the most famous artists in the world rn

 also weird that donald trump has made 34,000 tweets, seems like an incredibly large number

 the strangeness of yesterday was, for me, augmented by people on the internet talking about a tv show that ive never seen or heard about

 the sunlight is obscene

 im so upset about the sun being so bright im afraid to go outside

 im glad im the only poet who likes trailer park boys

 i slept in a blanket fort under my bed and havent left it all day

 yr = your ur = you're

 my favorite things are pdfs

 now that ive adapted my living space to allow me to never leave my blanket fort i feel like my roommate, omar, exists in a parallel universe

 i hear him but i never see him

 i love latte art, i drink many lattes

 thought that twitter "isn't worth it" in an upset tone while drinking mtn dew

 felt pleasant considering uniqueness of all parent-offspring relationships

 went through my closet + made sure all shirts and jackets were zipped/buttoned

 my blanket is generating flashes of light from static electricity

 record store guy became visibly sick of me several months ago; feel a little guilty every time i enter his store to spend money

 i prefer EPs

 felt "out of control" walking downhill listening to dead kennedys with headphones

 writing an essay is difficult because idk how much relevant information other people have already considered / moved on from

 have been wanting to write at least one poem inside my blanket fort but i don't think it's going to happen, i don't know why

 the internet isn't big enough

 usually when i think "i dont understand the uproar about [event]" i realize there is no "uproar"

 "uproar" is media's way of manipulating the public spotlight and distracting people from important tasks

 feeling helpless + melancholy after dying 15 times and killing 2 stormtroopers in star wars battlefront

 the only way to attain conor oberst-level emo hair is to lay in bed and sob for hours

 i'm sad

 my mom was confused when i told her my first book comes out today

 was luis neer in odd future

 thought "sometimes i just want to end it and start all over" in an exasperated tone re my goodreads account

 becoming increasingly convinced it would be best for me personally to take myself extremely seriously/never joke about myself

 thinking that my tweets would seem terrible if i were a senator/governor/other politician

 imagined doomsday device for future @starwars movies: the "death train," a normal train that exists in space and destroys planets

 how does anyone do it

 in science fiction movies, spacecraft usually look like shopping malls

 everyone in the world is high except me

 feel like i want to have poems published immediately

 having delusions of grandeur

 im sitting on my record player

 my most-used word in 2016 was "bleak"

 prepared and ate garbanzo beans w a lot of rosemart at 2:00 AM

 my brother has a friend over and is being mean to the friend

 all i want for christmas is to never cheer up, ever

 watching eyes wide shut and hugging duckuc

 my nose feels like it's going to bleed

 im sad because every bf looks like me

 getting better at eating ice cream by punching it with my tongue

 the internet is too freaky...

 i think 2017 will be a year of realizing things

 im watching the angry birds movie

 the angry birds movie is so shitty... why was it made...

 ive never had a new years kiss

   2017

   im weird

 eating medicinal ice cream

 im not going to do any drugs in 2017

 made a medicinal phone call

 i want to drink some blood

 i dreamed that roger ebert wrote a negative review of life after ppl and called it "liner notes"

 years dont kill people

 feel inexplicably/explicably really scared about the future of my poetry career

 i've felt stoned since i was a baby

 downloading google earth

 made eye contact in starbucks with possible luis neer incarnation from ~50 years in future; bon jovi "dead or alive" played through speakers

 realised that at some point in the future i will become extremely interested in watching football

 i recommend reading poems extremely slowly while touching the text with your middle finger/index finger

 experiencing cognitive dissonance

 used phonetic clues to correctly predict meaning of & use the word "tandem" while discoursing with myself internally

 i miss steel pedal guitar sounds on conor oberst songs

 my previous incarnation "college luis neer" has evolved to become "high school luis neer-like luis neer in college setting"

 thought "man, i got to stop caring what people think about me" in an emphatic tone that seemed confusing/interesting

 mediocore

 beyonce is cool i think

 i want to re-read "v for vendetta" and to not tweet about it

 remembered that i own a pinata

 i will be at awp

 how could i make twitter a better place

 i saw 4 people wearing yeezys in dc this weekend

 feeling increasingly self-conscious about how much i use the phrase "in the world" or refer to "the world" in poems

 felt robot-like while attaching detachable headphones cord to my headphones while wearing the headphones

 watching shepherd univ lacrosse team practice from "safety of" student center

 i invented releasing two chapbooks in one day

 im dumber than me

 reasoned mentally that im more likely to produce accurate drawings of myself because "i basically look like a bird, so i just draw a bird"

 i want to have a "fake tweet" (e.g. a simple phrase) to tweet repeatedly every time i feel urged to tweet an uninformed/unimportant opinion

 my fake tweet for the foreseeable future will be "i dropped my textbook in the stairwell". when i tweet this it means i have an opinion

 i dropped my textbook in the stairwell

 does anyone remember the chapter of "the hobbit" where bilbo avoids starvation by ingesting peanut butter, honey, cherry nyquil, and water

 sensed that all my college friends just simultaneously shifted from having vague/non-serious negative feelings about me to hating me

 resulting from continuous building of irrepressible/inevitable conjecture in the friends' conscious thoughts

 eating chicken and squash

 i click on 100% of poetry links tweeted by poets i follow

 when i was writing Waves i was obsessed with waves (e.g. energy waves, frequencies) and used the word "waves" at least ~10 times every day

 i dropped my textbook in the stairwell

 white nike swooshes on shoes of boy in library look vibrant/magical

 terrified of being cool

 walked to library really slowly while listening to noise music through big headphones

 i was really, really yung when i started publishing and i'm still really yung

 2 chainz always looks like he's walking in an airport

 i have 5 twitters

 i didnt know what bill paxton looked like, i was thinking RIP gene hackman

 why doesnt anyone blog about me

 thesis statements arent real

 thinking about my book

 i deleted both my tumblrs by accident

 sad about my tumblr

 my name is all over the internet

 im a lizard

 someday there'll be no more ppl

 a lot of conor oberst song titles have parentheses

 feeling sad about the actions of my clone, who passed away

 idk how to use venmo or what it is

 present-day tumblr is like the end of the never ending story where atreyu is talking with the rock biter and the nothing is swirling around

 when someone, anyone, is upset with me im afraid im going to be assassinated

 the views-era apple music ads that depict drake working hard in the studio have really affected and inspired me

 on tumblr i have 4 followers

 almost all of my tweets seem unimportant

 feel that if someone told me that one of my tweets made them upset i would just apologize and delete it

 ground control to commander venus

 i like my new tumblr

 i would be wearing a cardigan rn but i dont have one

 feel that i will continue to generate bright eyes-related content throughout my life

 is everything ok

 i look like michael moore

[djsamaha-blog]

The 6 Things You Need To Do To Change Your Life In 2016

This is a brief snapshot of my last three years:

2013: Started the year as a Senior Director in Kraft Foods in New York; ended the year sleeping on the floor of a yoga ashram fifty miles from Madurai in a forest in South India.

2014: Started the year as an unpublished novelist with sixty rejections; ended the year with an international book deal with Penguin Random House.

2015: Started the year in my dream job as the Chief Marketing Officer of a Brooklyn based start-up; ended the year having quit the job to launch The Yoga of Maxs Discontent in the US and set up my independent income stream.

This isnt a humble-brag kind of a post. Theres no straight line of success here. Rather, its a series of starts and stops, a zig-zag line of coming more and more into myself, all of it predicated by a hunger to constantly re-invent. Re-invent. Build things, then tear them down, then build a new thing again, because stasis is not an option. If you arent moving forward, you are falling back. So if youre ready to embrace a little turbulence, and a lot of fear(that weird heady feeling of excitement in your gut), then this is your guide on how to re-invent yourself in 2016. Note, I wont tell you to exercise or meditate. You should do those everyday of course but they are enablers to the goal, not the goal itself. Dont put all your mental energy into running a 10K race. If your goal isnt so insurmountable that it slashes your insides, then its not a goal. So heres how to change your life:

1. Create (or at least to create).

If a mans life is measured by the extent of its impact on others, then dont push paper around. Create stuff thats going to enhance peoples lives. A product. An idea. Art. A book. A philosophy. A company. An agency. A new way of doing things in your job, whatever. The world will disproportionately reward the creator. Its simple supply-demand economics. 2% of people are creating art, 98% are consuming art (2001 census). 13% of people are entrepreneurs. 87% of people work for them. 10% of executives in a company create new systems, 90% follow them (Gallup). Be in the Top 2%, 10%, 13%, and get results ahead of the majority. And the results arent just financial. You lose your sense of self, experience an instant of divinity, become truly alive when you create. Stuck for ideas? Maybe its time for that long overdue sabbatical? Try it. Youll never regret it.

2. Kickstart yourside hustle.

Ive been in marketing roles with P&G, BCG etc. since 2002 so I can tell you with some confidence that the last 3-5 years are a watershed in business history. With Facebook advertising, Instagram advertising, and continued improvement in Search/Ad Words etc., you can reach the exact target audience for your passion product in incredibly cost efficient ways. Seven years ago when I launched my first novel, Keep off the Grass, my only option to reach my readers was to hire an expensive PR agency that begged media outlets for coverage. This year, when I launched The Seeker in India, I reached everyone who had read similar books at a fraction of the cost. Old models are changing. Barriers to entry are crashing. The balance of power is shifting to the Davids. If you have a passion for anything, photography, writing, playing the guitar, whatever, you have no excuses anymore. Start on the side today (2016), become excellent (2017), and youll start making good money off it in 2018 to quit your main gig in 2019. Work your guts out to become excellentthats the only requirement the world is placing on you today.

3. Read like a maniac.

Work in the morning, play with your kids in the evening, do your side hustle in the night, then from 10p.m.-midnight, read until your eyes burn. Dont read everything you can lay your hands on. Plant a seed in your mind and nurture that seed by ravishing it with the best ideas in the world. In 2015, I planted a seed in my head about creating my own independent income stream. So just like Id done in 2013 with meditation and 2014 with writing, I read 50+ books to nurture the idea. Here are 3 examples (until this year youd never have found non-fiction/self-help on my book shelf):

a. The Millionaire Fastlane (Horrible title, great book) b. The Art of Non Conformity c. Think and Grow Rich

I also readTim Ferriss’ Four Hour Work WeekandJames Altucher’s blogevery day,and I followGary Vaynerchuck on Youtube.

I don’tknow the exact impact of my reading. Perhaps I change 0.5% for every book I read. But thats the magic of compounding. If youre changing 0.5% each day, its going to add up at the end of the yearand your world will transform.

4. Avoid thebusy-ness trap.

Do you feel you are rushing too much? Or your schedule is so packed already that theres no time for a side hustle? Then, carefully scrutinize your day and ruthlessly eliminate the 80% of relationships that are adding <20% of emotional value to your life. If your stomach knots with dread but you feel you need to do something only because of social norm, then dont do it. Youre not helping anyonenot yourself, not the person youre supposedly doing things for. Remember, growth=number of difficult conversations youre having everyday. Have the tough conversations and eliminate the dross. Busy-ness is a choice. This year, I chose not to be busy by skipping happy hours and obligatory family events that leave me depressed. I still failed a few times and attended too many dinners I didnt want to go to. Im going to be even stricter with my time in 2016.

5. Become a venture-capitalist Monk.

Your side hustle is your passion. Your day job sucks. No big deal. Dont quit, dont complain. Become a venture capitalist, a Robin Hood for your own ideas. Make money in your day job and pour it into your side projects. Take the best writing course in the world if youre an aspiring writer. Advertise your wedding photography business. Take a week off and learn filmmaking in New York. Rent store space for your cupcake shop. Dont buy houses and cars and expensive dinners at Nobu or whatever else people burn their money on. Live like a monk. Strip your life of the non-essentials and seek salvation only in nurturing your soul. Everything else is dust as the Buddha would say. Invest in your own growth because you are the one asset thats going to appreciate year-after-year no matter the economic environment.

6. Finally, train yourself to think only exceptional thoughts.

Nietzsche and Victor Frankl said it best. To live is to suffer and your suffering is like air in a balloonit will fill your whole heart. You can either fill your heart with mediocre thoughts like and and . Or you can pause and torment yourself with bigger thoughts, such as:Why was the world created? Does God exist? How do I live my purpose? Can I step up my side hustle? Exceptional thoughts lead to exceptional actionsand nothing less shouldbe your goal next year!

Read more: http://thoughtcatalog.com/karan-bajaj/2016/01/the-6-things-you-need-to-do-to-change-your-life-in-2016/