Friday, August 26, 2022 - 10:45 PM

I think I've decided that social media use is like cooking. It sucks and is a lot of work to do just for yourself, and it sucks and is way too much work for little reward in a high volume and/or career-type setting, but just for a few people you love? It's fucking fantastic. Like, you get the joy of making something and sharing it with people and you get to just enjoy it and bask in a job well done? Like, isn't that the dream for literally everything?

I've spent waaaay too much time online trying to be professional-adjacent, in trying to make something that I could live off of, or get by building commissions, or break into the animation industry and feeling I needed to curate a "hireable" online presence as an asset to that goal. In trying to do all three at once. The Panopticon spoke, and there were eyes everywhere, for both good and ill. Because, let us not forget, as a transmasc Otherkin boy, I am supremely bully-able. And I do not have a particularly thick skin. The handful of times I have been in the path of some asshole going out of their way to tell me they thought I was shit have stuck with me, and I've always been aware that the line between the light trickle I've seen and a deluge of shit is mostly just made of bad luck. It doesn't take much for a brigade of dick-brains to decide to teach you a lesson for literally nothing.

But yanno what, that's what blocking is for, and I have my notifications turned off anyway. The fuck am I gonna let them say to me? This isn't fifth grade anymore, I don't have to just lay down and take it.

I'll probably never be able to support myself with my art. Frankly, from the horror stories I've seen, that's not entirely a bad thing. Capitalism means that the kind of unending grinding it takes to barely keep your head above water is designed to destroy us. Grinding means something is wrong, actually. And I'd rather not blow out my back, or shoulder, or wrists and then have to keep trying to work around said injury because, hey, this is my livelihood. I'd rather not work 20-hour days in a studio system that requires 3-5 years experience for an "entry-level" job. I've been in systems where the fact that they let you work here is all the reward or recompense you're supposed to want or even expect, and frankly, Fuck That. Failing to get into an art career was probably, in hindsight, a massively slick move on my part. Did I go through a shitty, degree-mill art school just to build up enough skills to make my personal pet project? Apparently. Fuck it, at this point. With the way the corporations that own the studios and streaming platforms are running the show--especially this recent bullshit with Discovery dumping shows from HBO Max to get an insurance payout...well, it ain't gonna be good for anyone involved. It's a world where everything feels like it's collapsing, crumbling under the top-heavy weight of the requirement for infinite growth in a world that is just...itself. Enough. A Thing. Nothing can grow infinitely, and none of this is sustainable. So maybe I'm better off here as a vet assistant. Maybe that's Actually Really Good, and not just Kinda Nice.

I dunno. My current situation has its own issues. Shit always does. And it's as susceptible to the capricious whims of The Market as everything else, and the only way to get to anything better is through a full on revolution. But overall...I think it's a good place for me to be. For now, and even going forward. ^_^;; I have pretty bad trauma brain, still. It's still pretty opaque to me to try and project a future 5 or 10 years out. Some of that's just ADHD, but, yanno. For a very long time all that mattered was to keep going until I could break free. Right now I'm focusing on recovering and learning what I need to know to be a vet tech. I don't know what comes after that.

It's been really hard for me to try to draw for the past month and a half to two months. Lately, when I try, I get a surge of anxiety, or I just feel empty, or I try and draw something but I just can't vibe with it, and it feels and looks wrong.

I think some of the problem might be that I'm Zuko-ing. Like, yanno, how in Avatar the Last Airbender, after Zuko joins the Gaang his firebending is super weak because he's not fueling it with his rage anymore, and he has to find another source for his inner fire? Yeah, that. I've been driving myself with my need to Escape, and using it to do triage on myself for so long that...I think that's where I'm tripping up. I'll get that surge of anxiety, this idea that what I'm going isn't Good Enough, even though I'm actively trying to Not consider It Doesn't Matter a portfolio piece...but the pressure in my head is still there. I still feel that need to prove myself, even though there's nothing to prove myself against, and no goal that that is working towards. But I do this about everything. I don't write about my Otherkin experiences because I don't have the words, or don't know how to shape something that happened to me into A Story, and I end up just writing when the frustration burbles up enough that I don't care whether it's Good or not, I just need it Out.

I'm not sure how to course-correct my relationship with social media and making things. Like, the first step is obviously to be aware of it, and to work to make mindful choices in line with this new value. Framing it as "Something to do with a small collection of close friends" is probably the best shape I can put it in, and seems like a thing I would ultimately be able to maintain...if I can be consistent in trying to get there. I'm gonna hafta work on approaching things not as an art I'm working to develop, and instead as...I don't know. A thing to share? A thing for my friends and mates? Info I wish someone had passed on to me when I was starting out? I dunno. There's shit I want to write about, shit I want to make. I don't want to ever stop making IDM, but also...it hurts. It really hurts to work on it now.

Yeah, I'm gonna try and write more frequent, smaller posts.

Zuko-ed - Sonic