#gabe im gonna be honest where the fuck do you put this in a linear video game

[my-motherflippin-blog-son]

SOME POSITIVE REFLECTIONS FROM QUARANTINE

I think it’s important to acknowledge just how non-linear, progress is. You��re gonna bounce all over the place for a long time before you start feeling like you actually put some distance between where you started and where you are now. And even after all that effort, all that struggling, progress, on anything, often feels underwhelming.

I spent a whole year struggling with a lot of anxiety over this project, really worried about having a senior project that feels substantial. Something that can make up for my weak ass portfolio. Something that feels honest but smart, something funny, something to better myself, something that could make a positive change in the world beyond me. I needed it to solve all this because i was scared of being a failure. I already knew that anxiety made me waste a lot of time throughout school, it had skewed how I lived my life so dramatically. I thought I could make up for everything I knew I did wrong if I could just do something something substantial and meaningful. And in my subconscious, I felt like I if I could do that, it would define who I really was beyond that anxiety, beyond all my fuck ups. 

It took me a solid half a year to come up with an idea I liked. I wrote dozens and dozens of pages of research. I wanted to make sure that each step I took toward that abstract end goal was the right one. Then problem after problem was thrown in my lap, forcing me to alter my idea. And I can blame my lack of progress on all the constant shit thrown in my lap, but I know the real reason was all that anxiety. It was paralysis, something keeping me too afraid to move forward or make a wrong move. 

Part of it was I needed to know I was doing the right thing in everyone else's eyes. And at first glance, that’s not a bad thing. The world is empathetic, you’re only as good as the value you can bring to everyone in your life. How much love can you give? How many problems can you solve for others? Can you give back more good to the world than you add to the bad? I still think those ideals are what part of make the world a kinder place. At the end of the day, ya just want the most amount of people to be happy. Theres so much good in the world you want to be a part of. It wasn’t bad thinking, it wasn’t toxic, but it was partially a need to please everyone in order to validate who I was. It’s those sorta thoughts that were informing my mentality. But you can’t define yourself as long as you’re doing it through the lense of others. 

So there were all these hiccups, there was all this anxiety because of the democratic primaries and graduation, and on top of that, then the virus hit. And I felt more paralyzed than ever. I’d designed a whole project around focusing in on a specific evil, approaching it with some wit and levity, and making a change. But then the rules of the game changed and i just couldn’t care anymore. And why would anyone else? When you’re drowning, It’s hard to care about someone complaining about how cold the water is. That’s kinda where I was at, it was just a lot all at once. And honesty what affected me emotionally the most is that this was a project about me having something to say and being able to say it with a little bit of wit, and I just had nothing funny to say. I couldn’t find anything funny. I had nothing productive to say, no clever solutions, nothing that added to the good. No one wanted to hear another white dude complain about capitalism without offering any solutions, especially me. MAYBE you could argue listening to someone vent is fun, but the only reason listening to someone vent is fun is because you don’t see your feelings articulated as well anywhere else. But it’s like, when the whole world is screaming, what’s the point in screaming too? I just wanted a distraction. But I didn’t realize that till later. 

I spent almost 2 months having done virtually nothing. Then I met in a big group with all of Anthony’s advisees, where it turned out everyone had been affected in some way. Most people now had to make a change to how they were going to present their ideas but were still about to go on with their project, and some people were even close to done. But I just wasn’t. So when it got to me i just kinda plopped all my baggage on the table. I said I’m depressed in every possible way but outright saying it and still talking about my project, not even realizing i was doing it. I shouldn’t of done that, but was exhausted and drained so I had no filter. and after i said my piece, they talked at me for a while trying to help me find some peace in not feeling up to creating anything, but the question that stuck in my head was Anthony asking “so if this wasn’t for senior project, what would you be doing right now?” 

And honestly the answer was “nothing”. I didn’t wanna do shit. I wanted to play animal crossing and watch Buzzfeed Unsolved for 16 hours a day and listen to the same 5 Tennis songs over and over. I left that meeting feeling a little nihilistic. I had no ideas and nothing clever to say. I felt stripped of everything. This project was already my hail mary as it was. There was no way I was ever going to make something that felt substantial in time. No matter what i did, it was going to feel underwhelming to me.

But the fun thing about nihilism is that sometimes it leads to optimistic nihilism. Optimistic nihilism feels like kinda surrendering yourself to the universe, theres a feeling of clarity. If I was going to be a disappointment, who cared what I made? people are going to be underwhelmed no matter what. What future is there to worry about when every future plan you had was scrapped? Fuck it. It doesn’t have to be meaningful anymore; If you have nothing to say, say nothing. 

But I kept thinking about Anthony's question and realized that if I were to be forced to make something, it would be little animation loops. Its all I felt like doing. They’re fun to make. everything else felt forced. Something simple and pretty like the “How To Forgive” visualizer. 

And in the past, being inspired by a piece of media would make me anxious people would think I was copying or worse, that I was doing something derivative of something better and people . But recently, I wrote a “manifesto” for design issues about the current design trend which I called “Behance Style”. This manifesto made me break down everything these trendy designers were doing. using the same imagery, the same image making techniques, the same style fonts, there was so much of “the same”. It all felt so derivative of each other. But it didn’t matter to me. I liked it anyway. I was still entertained. And because now that I understood how this trend worked, I knew if I wanted to, I could subvert it, so I wasn’t afraid of making things in that style.

I’d been asked some variation of “forget the grade, what would you normally make? what do you want to make?” many times throughout this project. But I spent the last 6 years not making anything for myself, it was all to try and meet some standard. So when people asked about my personal projects, I didn’t know how to make any. Anxiety made me work non stop on school stuff, I never gave myself the time for stuff outside of what was required. And was always too anxious about school to feel compelled to make anything for myself. It was a distraction controlled by anxiety and self hate. I’m still struggling with the idea of making things just to make them without being influenced by outside forces, but this felt like a big step in the right direction.

Saint Cloud by Waxatachee dropped and it was just so pretty and cathartic and that was all I listened to for like 2-3 weeks. Between Saint Cloud and Swimmer, I had all these ideas for little pretty loops. Gabe Gundacker started his new project and I’ve been loving everything he’s released. I started listening to a lot of love songs. The Midnight Gospel came out and while the narratives are so thoughtful and engaging, that show partially felt so inspiring because the visuals feel like they were made with the mentality of “lets have fun with it.” It all felt really nice to just be able to appreciate something purely for being pretty. I didn’t care if people judged my music taste for being basic or thought my visuals we’re corny, I just wanted to make stuff to distract myself. 

I just realized im writing in the past tense, even though i’m currently still in the middle of this project. Maybe to solidify the reality I want to exist? 

Im still working on it now, who knows how this’ll all turn out, but all this feels like a nice step in the right direction. just moving one very small step at a time and then often thanking another step backwards or sideways feels exhausting but eventually you make progress, and it’s the only way to go about it, especially when you feel like you’re starting from nothing.

maybe edit that last paragraph tomorrow. i wrote it and it feels like a conclusion but i definitely didn't mean for it to, im just tryna wring out the last ideas i got in my head before going to bed. you might even wanna delete it and move shit around. i wanna come back to this tomorrow. really explore this and get to the bottom of shit. theres more i wanna say but i cant come up with the words that feel right. it s 5:04 am.