I'm Greedy For Growth

  March 19, 2022

It’s very grey today. I woke up at 8, went for a jog, read Allen Carr’s EasyWay to Quit Smoking until 11 and then walked Harry. I like it when it’s raining. I don’t like it when it’s just grey. I feel that the grey is justified when it’s at least raining. 
Yesterday seems foggy. I hardly remember it. I had stayed up late smoking weed the night before, meaning that I felt pretty shitting for most of yesterday. I smoked twice yesterday- once in the afternoon and again in the evening. I was going to smoke again at 9 but I just couldn’t get the joint roller to work. I gave up and didn’t bother. I’m glad about that, because I got a pretty good sleep, not as good as if I hadn’t smoked at all, though. 
Around 10:30 I was looking at my monitor downstairs. I was playing around with it, curios to see if it did anything I didn’t know it could do. I saw that the refresh rate was at 60Hz and that there was an option to go up to 75. I selected that and the everything went to shit. The monitor just went black and wouldn’t come on again. I opened the laptop and suddenly the monitor came on again, but whenever I’d close the laptop, the monitor would once again go off. I think I was able to get the monitor back to 60Hz, but it won’t stay on with the Mac closed. I have no fucking idea what happened. I got really fucking frustrated last night. I felt like I’d wasted an entire hour, and I hadn’t even fixed it. I tried again this morning and it still didn’t work. I don’t need to use the computer downstairs right now, so it’s not urgent. I just hate when I spend time on something and it still doesn’t make a difference. 
I think there’s a lesson here though. In life, there’s going to constantly be situations like this one- something is not working and it’s really frustrating, but fixing the problem is not urgent. I realize that as shitty as if feels knowing that it’s not working, it might not be as bad as a scenario where I spend the whole day trying to fix it at the expense of spending time on more urgent things. I think I need a system where when an issue arises, I first try to solve it. If after a certain amount of time the issue has not been resolved, I then assess how important resolving the issue really is. If I determine that it is not of major importance, than perhaps I should put off fixing the issue in order to put my time towards more pressing issues. 
The thing is, there’s always going to be issues. Each issue varies in importance at that particular time. Obviously the most pressing issues should be dealt with sooner. I guess a key component to the system is a method of determining and assigning importance to different issues. 
I guess this is where having a long term goal can be handy. That’s what helped with the website. I had an overarching ‘principle’. The smaller and frequently arising ideas could be held up in contrast with other ideas. The overarching principle could then be used to reveal which idea may be of most value.
A sense of direction. 
While walking Harry I started thinking about how much I like my jacket. I started thinking about how many things I own that I truly like. There’s a few of them. My jacket, my AirPods, my MacBook Air, my black pants, my watch, audio interface. I’m sure there’s more. But basically I was thinking how nice it would be if I only owned things I truly loved. It would be nice to remove all the things from my life that are just ‘ok’. I have a lot of stuff, and if I’m going to move to Australia in November, I’d better start getting rid of some things. The things that I can easily get rid off are clothes I no longer wear, wires I don’t use, or broken things. 
I love the idea of being able to have everything I need fit into one or two suitcases. I love the idea of being able to go anywhere in the world and have my setup. I don’t mean I want to have no possessions, I just mean that I want the things I own to be so good, that in some cases they can do multiple jobs really well. A laptop is a perfect example. A monitor doesn’t really make sense, except that I still have a MacBook Pro that works fine, but which I can’t sell because the screen is broken. So does it make sense to keep the monitor? I like the idea of having backups. If this laptop breaks or is lost, I still have a backup. 
Ideally these are things I’d like to bring to Australia.

- MacBook Air 
- MacBook Pro
- Asus Monitor 
- Stereo Monitors
- Scarlett Solo 
- Rode Mic Arm 
- Compressor Mic 
- Electric Guitar 
- Bluetooth Mouse 
- Bluetooth Keyboard 
- Canon R
- Canon Rebel T5i
- Minolta x-700
- Camera Accessories (Lens, Microphones) 

I think that one ‘principle’ I could start using when it comes to determining what I should own is to ask myself how well it serves the ‘Holy Superfecta’. 
The Holy Superfecta consists of Writing, Photography, Videography, and Music. Those are the main things I’d like to devote my time towards, with my website serving as the ‘hub’. Since the pursuit of all four disciplines will produce ‘forms’ of one kind or another, the website serves as a ‘shelf’ where all of the ‘forms’ can be collected and organized by date. 
I think ultimately it makes sense to have something going on in one of the 4 disciplines at all times. I guess one of the 5, since the website needs to be able to work properly as envisioned. I don’t know what’s better- taking turns between disciplines, such as one month photography, one mont videography, etc, or doing all of them but in smaller bite sizes. I like the idea of them all growing together. I also think that if an opportunity arises that will require a lot of time on just one, I should still be open to taking that opportunity. 
So as of right now, I have zero going on in any of these fields. Great. 
I guess I can jot does ideas for each. They don’t need to be huge things like ‘be a professional photographer for a magazine’ and ‘be a professional sitcom writer’. 
They can be smaller bite sized things that I could even just do once a week. One day a week is better than zero days a week, plus since I’m focusing on 4 disciplines, that’s 4 days a week in the world of art. Oh and by the way, I want things that involve other people. I’m not talking about doing these things alone in my room. I’ve done that for years now. I still want to keep doing those personal projects, but I also want to have something going on, sorta like how I’m dog walking.

Photography

- Street Photography 
- Putting Up Street Art 
- Freelance Photography
- Volunteer Photography 
- Volunteer Magazine Photographer 
- Photography Groups 
- Photograph video productions


Videography 
- Freelance Videography 
- Production Assistant 
- Working on Small Sets 


Music

- Open Mic Nights 
- Volunteer at a Studio 

Writing 

- Courses 
- Stand-Up Comedy
- Thursday Writing Group 

If I could be involved in just one thing for each discipline, that would be awesome. That way I’ll have a steady stream of content and practise. 

Paddle Her Ass

  March 17, 2022

Today is quite beautiful. It was super foggy last night and this morning, but it’s all evaporated now. The sky is blue, although there’s still a slight haze. It looks cool, asides from all the soggy mud everywhere. I feel very good. I woke up at 8:30 and went on a jog! I’ve gotten into the habit of not running in the morning. Now that it’s not horribly cold I’ve got no excuse not to go. I wasn’t gonna run, but I decided to do it. I felt amazing afterwards. I totally forgot how much of a difference it makes when I jog first thing in the morning. I feel so sharp and awake afterwards. I sat on the couch and read for about 2 hours. It was so much easier to read today, I guess because I didn’t smoke weed yesterday and because I actually ran.
At 11 I walked Harry the big black dog. It was nice, although I much prefer walking him at 3. It’s just this week that I’m walking him in the morning. 3 is the perfect time for me because by then I’ve had lots of time to read, I’ve worked on stuff for 2 hours and I’ve eaten. After all that my brain starts to get sleepy so it’s a great excuse to go out for a walk. If I was at home I’d just sorta sit around being unproductive until like 5. 
I’ve gotta run up to the Fox. They can’t find the keys. I closed last night with Denzel. I actually remember that I couldn’t find them last night either. I was gonna ask Denzel where he’d put them but I forgot to ask. So yah, I gotta do that now and I’m gonna get some groceries at the same time. 
*
Just got back. I couldn’t find the keys. I gotta feeling Denzel took them home by accident. 
I love this laptop so much. It’s such a joy to use for some reason. When I watched the review people said that they got excited when they knew they had to use it. I have the same feeling. I don’t quite know what it is. I had a similar feeling with my first Mac. That was a 2015 MacBook Pro. I didn’t have that feeling with my second Mac for some reason. That was a 2018 MacBook Pro. It had the TouchBar, the butterfly keyboard, the USB-C ports. I guess it was a combination of those things and maybe some other things. This one has a much better keyboard and no more Touch Bar. I much prefer it without the Touch Bar. I still think it’s a super cool idea, and it worked well. I just never needed it. The computer is actually easier to use without it, for me at least. This is also the thinnest and lightest of the Macs I’ve owned. It’s only a MacBook Air. It’s also the fastest Mac I’ve owned by far. It’s insane just how fast it is. I even got it with 16 GB of RAM, so it’s quite powerful. I can do all my video and photo editing and music making on here just fine. There’s also no fan, and it almost never gets warm. It’s pretty insane. It’s using a chip designed by Apple. All previous Macs were using chips designed by other companies. My last two Macs were using Intel chips. It’s actually a pretty exciting time for Apple. I haven’t felt this sort of excitement since I was really young, when Steve Jobs was still alive. The products look awesome, and yet they’re not doing as many things that totally annoy people. The machines are so fucking fast, so the relatively high prices feel totally justified. I can do everything I need with a MacBook Air with 16 GB of RAM. It’s insane. This is only the base line Apple chip. Every other chip Apple makes will be even faster than this, and this one already feels overpowered in most cases. So yah, I’m very happy with it. I’ve been so careful with it. I want it to last a long time. 
I’ve been getting excited about the website again. I can envision what it could be in my head quite clearly. I realize how helpful it could be for other people, not just myself. Just from talking to people the last few days about random stuff I’ll notice how it could help them. This morning I was talking to Brooke, Harry’s owner, and she was telling me how she has so many random things she’s written that are in her notes and scattered on her computer. I would love if I could just give her the software today. It would be so helpful. Ultimately, you should be able to have documents written in notes that are automatically uploaded to the website, very much like iCloud. I would also like the software to be able to scan your whole computer and compile all the different file types, as opposed to going through hard drives and looking for things. You could select something that says ‘Reveal All JPEGS’ or Reveal All MP3’. It should be able to do any file type. Once it’s showed you all the files, you should then be able to easily have those files upload straight to the website- the only thing you have to do would be to specify the date you’d like it placed in, if it’s different from date that the document was created. I like the idea of it uploading to a cloud storage system (the back end) as well as the website (the front end). It would be really cool if it could work seamlessly with platforms like iCloud, Microsoft One Drive, DropBox, etc. Those would serve as the back end.
As of right now there’s not really an easy and enjoyable way to look at old memories that are stored digitally. People might have everything organized perfectly on hard drives, but that’s like the equivalent of having all your family photos arranged perfectly in boxes. What you want is to have them organized in photo books that you can engage with and flip through, only this photo book includes not only photos, but videos, written documents, music, or anything else really. Any file type. 
So I guess what I gotta do is first get as far as I can go with a version for myself. I’m probably gonna have to start learning to code at some point. I think that once I have mine as far as I can take it, I should then pick some one, either a friend or family member, and design one for them. That way I can get very good at building them since the repetition will be useful. 
I also gotta start getting serious about Australia. There’s quite a few things that are gonna be challenging, so the sooner I get started the better. I’ve gotta apply for a Visa. I’ve gotta figure out what I want to bring, and then I’ve gotta get rid of a bunch of stuff in the house. I guess I’m gonna have to ship some things? I want to bring my electric guitar, my cameras, my speakers and mics and I would love to bring my monitor. I don’t use it often but I love that thing. I haven’t been using it with my old Mac only because I haven’t been making music, but that’s what it’s basically for, and I’m definitely going to keep making music. 
I don’t want to get rid of family photos, so I’m thinking that I’ll scan all the photos, and then hopefully I can leave them with Mami’s photos at her place in Montreal. There’s only a few photo books. I also want to keep childhood stuff, like the bag of stories and drawings. Hopefully I can leave them with Mami as well. I don’t want to be sorting through Liam’s stuff. I told him before he left that this was not his storage space. I told that to dad as well. I remember so vividly telling them that, and how angry they got at me. They can be such fucking morons sometimes. What do they expect me to do once I move out? Just pack their things with me and take it all to my next place? I told them both to decide what they’re gonna do with their stuff, because once I move out, I’m just gonna throw out what’s still there. They got so fucking angry at me. That’s part of why I’m so excited to leave. I still feel like I’m weighed down by the both of them in a way, I guess because so much of there stuff is here, and because we all lived here. I love the idea of living somewhere where it’s only MY stuff. I’m free from them completely. That really excites me. For some reason it make me feel weird when I talk to mom and dad on the phone, and I know that they know what the apartment looks like, as well the neighbourhood. It’s hard to explain, but one of the things that happened with Liam is that we totally don’t know his life anymore, aside from what he tells us and what he shares online. I don’t mean I want to cut them off the way he kinda did. Not at all. I really love talking to them both and having them in my lives. I just feel like I’m still living in my Dad’s house, and I don’t feel totally independent yet. I always feel like I kinda owe him something, since he’s the one I send rent to, and anytime something breaks around the house he’s the one I message so that he can contact the building. I won’t ever have to do that again in a different house. It will be nice to have that bit of freedom and not feel dependant on him anymore. I think it’ll be good for the both of us, actually. 
I’ve gotta go to Nana’s today. I wish I didn’t dread going there. I only see her once a week and it’s really nice to see her. It’s literally just getting there and back that causes me such a headache. I think it annoys me because I know how close she is and yet it’s so slow getting there. It was much easier and faster when I would bike there. Now it’s like 3-4 hours somehow from the time I leave the house to the time I’m home. I don’t have a working bike, plus I often have groceries with me. And then I feel like I’m in a bad mood when I’m there and like I’m just trying to finish up the jobs as soon as possible. I feel excited and guilty to be leaving her. I feel excited because it can feel pretty suffocating talking with her sometimes. Dad had it much much worse, even mom. They both talk about how hard it was to ever talk to her just because she’s always asking questions about your life and why you’re not doing so and so and when you’re gonna do so and so. That wouldn’t be so bad if she was at least was happy for you when you actually accomplished one of those things. It’s so weird, because she’ll ask and ask when you’re gonna start a particular thing, and when you finally start it, she couldn’t seem to care less and will immediately move onto the next set of questions that she has. She’s not as bad with me as she is with Mom and Dad. I feel like I’m pretty good at getting her to stop. I kind of just answer simply and vaguely, and then ask her some questions. When we’re just chatting it’s very nice. I think it’s that she feels like she needs to talk about something and the only thing she can think of is to just ask for updates. Anyways, I feel excited to not have that anymore. It can also be hard because she is constantly trying to instil fear, it seems. I don’t think she’s doing it intentionally. If she could have it her way she would have her whole family living next to her in a retirement home, never going out at night, never leaving the city or the country. I remember on the boat how frustrated dad would get because she was always sending him emails with updates about gringos who’d recently died in Mexico. I’m expecting her to do the same with me once I tell her I’m serious about going to Australia. I feel guilty though, because she’s so old and sorta relies on me for a few things at this point. I also worry that once I’m gone she won’t feel that she has much reason to live. I don’t want to imply that I don’t like her. That’s not true at all. I fucking love her so much, she’s so amazing in so many ways. I need to definitely get as many recorded interviews with her as I can. She has such amazing memories, and she has such an amazing way of recounting them. She was born in 1929 and so she saw the majority of the 20th century. It’s her memories of World War 2 that are particularly incredible. She was 10 years old living in Manchester when it started and 16 by the time it ended so she remembers it all just fine. 

Go Hiking

  March 15, 2022

I’m a taller guy on days when I’m sick. It’s now that I fall fast like this. 
I’m tough on boys a lot. I always tear them apart. It’s so aggressive of me! I’m like a fleeing bomb full of laughter!!!! 
That’s a success for me. That’s my greatest achievement! 
I’m actually happy for you! I will sit on this brick until I’m made Mayor.
You all owe me a bunch of money anyways, from the time that I stole the soup from the kitchen? And you all said that I was up to no good every Sunday?
I told you people to go hiking or some other random sport. I was so done with the bags, and so I put them down. Look at all the hikers! You are all tough on me. 
 

A Paradise For My Pooch

  March 14, 2022

It’s a beautiful day out today. At least from inside it is. Well not so much anymore actually. It was pretty sunny all morning, now it’s grey again. I woke up at 8 and read until 12. I’m reading ‘Mila 18’ and I am enjoying it a lot. I’m learning about all sorts of interesting things involving Europe and World War 2. It’s such an interesting way to learn, since the book is historical fiction. All the dates, locations, facts are accurate. It’s the specific characters that are fiction. I like this style because it allows me to really ‘feel’ the events in a way I don’t get when reading purely non-fiction accounts of an event. Because there’s characters that I’m invested in, it sorta allows me to really imagine I’m there and that this stuff actually happened. 
It also makes me angry about war. From a broad perspective, like observing from a distance, conflict doesn’t seem that weird, but when you zoom way in and observe on the scale of humans, that’s when it all starts to feel completely insane. All these young guys in the middle of the country side murdering each other. It’s so bizarre. All the money and engineering that’s used to ultimately end lives. Its such a strange way to spend money! What makes me angry is when they take that technology and thinking to cities. I sorta understand when they’re blowing up bridges or roads or train tracks, but when they shoot and bomb cities and towns, that’s when I start feeling this anger in myself. It’s just so insane. What are you doing? I suppose the goal is to demoralize the people, making the attack and capture of a target quicker and easier.  
I find myself trying to see all this from the perspective of whoever is flying the UFO’s. They must be totally disheartened and saddened. We have so much potential. We could turn this place into the most unbelievable ecosystem. I guess that’s what the Nazi’s wanted, though. That’s the weird and disturbing thing about the Nazi’s. They actually kind of wanted that future. They wanted the world to be a paradise, free from disease and suffering. They wanted a blank slate that they could then build what they hoped might be a better world. They were so close and yet so unbelievably far in their idea of how to make a better planet. It’s a bad sign when the first step in your goal of establishing a utopia involves murdering whatever is already living there. The act of murder is a presentation of how flawed the system might really be. When a system is flawed from the very beginning, even if it seems to be a minor flaw, the flaw might have a broader influence over time as the system grows. 
It’s easy to understand why people are so fascinated by Hitler and the Nazis. On one hand, they had this unbelievable ability to focus and get the job done. There was so clearly a streak of intelligence there. They were so good at what they wanted to do. The part that is so surprising though, is how they didn’t seem to know when to stop. 
It’s sorta like if there was an office building in a city, and this buildings main tenant was Poland. The Nazis decide they want to be the main tenants of this building, so they go ahead and murder and enslave the Poles inside. That concept isn’t that new in world history. The weird part to me is that the Nazi’s seemed to be so confident in themselves, that they decided to keep going. ‘Why not become the main tenant of that building across the street as well! Heck, why not occupy the whole block! Why could occupy the whole neighbourhood!’ 
And so that’s what they seemed to attempt with Europe, which just seems so insane and obvious in its impossibility. I guess they were betting on certain advances in technology? If they had gotten a nuke then maybe that becomes more realistic? But still, this idea that they need to do it as quick as possible just seems kind of dumb. Why not do it in stages? I’m sure there’s plenty of important factors that I’m totally ignorant too. In fact, the idea of doing it in stages may have been the plan, but the fact that England and France got involved may have forced them to just go for it. I don’t know, I haven’t got that far yet. 
I’ve been very excited about Australia. It’s sinking in more and more each day that I can actually do this. I see it as real now. The thought of leaving a city that is grey for half the year is making me buzz. I’ve got something to really look forewords to, if I want it. It’s also made me more aware of my past for some reason. Now that I see I can leave, I’ve started looking at Toronto as one of the chapters in my life. I often forget that I haven’t lived here all my life. I often forget memories of being on the boat, or on Salt Spring. Now I see that Australia can be another chapter, and that Toronto will have been a chapter. 

The idea of leaving people behind doesn’t seem as upsetting anymore, I think because every time I mention it to friends, they’re actually very excited for me! Veronica thought it sounded so cool. She almost seemed jealous. Carter also has been excited about the idea, especially when I told him that I’d be going to Gold Coast. He thought that was super cool. The only people I can see being genuinely sad will be Nana and Mami. Even talking on the phone or messaging will become slightly difficult, since day time in Canada is night time in Australia. I’m excited to see Yoga and Pablo and try the food at their restaurant. I’m a little worried about the weather. It’s gonna be hot, but I’m also worried about all the bushfires they get there. I recently watched the documentary about the recent wildfires in Australia. They were absolutely insane. The scale seemed prehistoric. The videos of the mushroom-like clouds that went straight up were unlike anything I’d ever imagined. So that’s a little concerning. 
I’ve still gotta get my new passport. My Second City class was canceled for the second time due to low enrolment. I guess that means I may be able to go visit Dad. 
I didn’t smoke any weed yesterday, but I’ve been thinking about it today. I’m reading Alan Carr’s book and it’s helping a lot with the weed. He wrote it about cigarettes, but the principles seem pretty much applicable to any sort of addiction. That’s what I realized the other day when I was high. I realized that I’m addicted. I have this powerful urge to do a thing I know I don’t like. Every time I roll a joint, I know I’m not gonna enjoy it. That’s how it was with cigarettes as well. The act of smoking just quiets the withdrawal pangs for the moment, although they always return. And continuing to smoke just feeds that creature, and enlarges its appetite.  
I’m still quite tempted to smoke though, I think because in the book you’re allowed to keep smoking cigarettes while reading. The point is that if you’re having to use will power to refrain from smoking, you’re not doing it properly. Once you get what he’s saying, it becomes easy and enjoyable to stop. The issue with weed is that once I smoke, the effects are with me basically for the rest of the day. It’s not like a cigarette where I felt more or less normal after about 20 minutes. With weed it seems to take a full night of sleep before I’m back to normal. Even then it might be longer, depending on how late I smoke, since it will affect my sleep making the next day potentially miserable. For me, being stoned makes being alive feel like a chore. 

Attractive Like I

 March 13, 2022

I want to have a very nice file management system. I’m realizing now how powerful and helpful iCloud can be for this. 
There’s 4 main categories. Pictures, Videos, Audio and Writing. 
For writing, I’d like it so that I can access the documents from any device very easily.
Up until now I’ve been doing all my writing in Google Docs. That app would be great if I was using a Pixel Phone, or any other Google phone, but since I have an iPhone, it might make more sense to be using Pages. The downside of Google Docs is that I need to be connected to the internet to start writing a document there. Pages might be better because I can start a document on my Mac, have it automatically save to iCloud, allowing me to add more to that document right from my iPhone. 
Once the document is finished, its permanently stored in iCloud. I can’t change the name of the pages folder, but for now that will be where all my writing is stored. Inside the pages folder I can have everything sorted by date. It seems like it could be a really nice way to store things. Everything is always backed up to the cloud, so losing or breaking my computer or phone won’t mean I lose anything. The writing also starts on the device, which I like, because it means I don’t need to be connected to the internet to begin a document. I can start writing on a bus or cafe, and as soon as my computers connects to wi-fi, the document will automatically upload to iCloud It’s really cool, and I love the feeling I get. It’s the really nice feeling of knowing things are safe. I guess there’s always the possibility of being hacked, which is why I still think it’s important to have everything saved to hard drives, just in case. This can something I do like every 3 months or something like that, where I download all the new stuff from the last 3 months from iCloud and copy it all over to 2 or more external drives. 
 
I just downloaded Pages for my iPhone and it works quite nicely. I can edit a document I started on my Mac and vice versa. I can also access older documents because they’re all grouped together in iCloud and accessible right from the Pages app. I don’t need to leave Pages and go to Drive to access them. 
Ok so that’s writing. Then there’s photos. I think that the Photos app can come in handy, but only to an extent. I think it might be helpful for photos taken with the iPhone.

Stoned Again

 March 12, 2022

Areas To Focus On:
Getting Passport 
Australian Visa 
Going to Open-Mics 
Having RAG up and running 

I’m at home, high. I’m on the couch. Just sat here doin stuff. I’m the cloud! I am! I am the magic tool maker who builds this couch! I’m powerful for several reasons. I’m the first guy in line for you. I’m that serious. I’m really on steroids these days.This is some important stuff you gotta do! You can’t stop those things. That’s all that I’m talking about. You can talk to me with you. Listen up. 
I’m so fucking bored. 
I’m bored as fuck. It’s all one fire anyways. I’m just high and bored. I wanna have sex . That sounds fucking fun,  uhhhhh. I don’t wanna try. I blame weed. tHere I said it. I think if one thing should. Go to see if things improve, it would be weed. That’s all I’m saying. I don’t take long enough breaks. I crack and go back.  It's weird that it pulls me back. Quitting peanut butter or eggs or a coke or chips don’t pull me like that. Why does weed? It keeps convincing me to do it. And I get really low. I feel so low. I don’t get high I get low. 
Why do I keep wanting to get low? I keep thinking how it’s helped me before. That’s the thing that ends up scaring me the most. I think of the times when I realized something really cool when I was high or had a great idea that got implemented in something. 

RAG

Mar 11, 2022

It’s snowing outside. It looks really pretty. I just finished reading ‘My Life In Art’. I feel like it had so much to teach. It was very dense in knowledge. I’m sure it will have a good effect on me.

I smoked weed yesterday, so I’m a little tired today. I’m hoping to try some sort of system where I stay sober for like a week, then smoke at the end of it. The problem always is that I end up smoking for more than just one day. I have a hard time not becoming a total pothead. It’s impossible to grow when I’m high. 

I just find it really useful to smoke once in a while because of the new perspective I always get. It doesn’t help to actually be high when living my life. It makes everything much more boring and difficult. I see weed as being like goggles you can put on once in a while, just to get a perspective shift.

For example, when I’m building the website and I feel stuck on something, I find that after smoking weed I suddenly see a new approach that is totally obvious. The weed does nothing to help with actually implementing the new idea. It actually makes that part way, way harder. Weed just sends me straight into my head. In some cases that sucks and is anxiety inducing, while in other cases it turns out to be helpful. 

The problem is when I get stuck with it. Once I start doing it every day it becomes pretty pointless. Sure, I may have tons and tons of ideas, but because I’m tired and lazy I never actually implement any of them. That’s where being sober is so important.

I’m also wary of designing a system whereby I rely on marijuana for inspiration and direction. It sorta seems like a bad road, long term. But maybe not, I don’t know yet. If I can control it then I think it's fine. It’s just this problem of abusing it.

I talked to mom last night and she told me how excited Yoga and Pablo are about the idea of me going to Australia and staying with them. That’s really great news. It is exactly what I’ve wanted for the last couple years, and I don’t think the full weight of it has set in yet. 

I have an opportunity similar to the one Liam had, in that there’s a new location with a job and home already waiting for me. It’s awesome news. I can move to Australia if I want to. I can do it. There’s a very clear destination, I just have to travel along the path over the next months to get it all set up. 

There’s this funny feeling about the idea of leaving Toronto. The main one is Nana. She’ll be very alone once I leave. Of course I don’t want to make decisions based solely on her. That would be robbing myself of something important. 

The other factor is this apartment. I hope that we can figure out a way in which we can keep this place. Maybe dad could stay here? Maybe Jason could kinda become in charge, and I could find a great person to rent out my room. I could charge a little extra, like $700 a month, that way I’d make a little extra money.

I also think about friends. There’s a few friendships that might not survive the move. 

I think I had a pretty simple idea of girls. I was not used to the idea of personality being a whole separate factor from looks. I guess I always assumed that being attracted to someone meant that you’d also be attracted to their personality.

I’ve gotta walk Harry today at 3, but that’s about it. I don’t want to smoke weed. I’ve got work tomorrow morning at 9 am. I’d like to start reading the next book. It’s called ‘Mila 18'. Nana got it for my birthday.

I really need to write about my website. I need to get all the principles, goals, ideas down on paper. There’s so much I’ve learned. When I talk to people, those things start to bubble up and I could talk for hours about it. I need to actually write it down.

The original purpose was to just have all the things I’ve made in one public place. It’s basically a hard drive, only the hard drive is made public.

I’d thought about this kinda thing forever. A cool website is one of the things I thought about since I was like 15. I used to write about how I wanted to make ‘the world’s first digital art gallery’. 

At the time I imagined a website that would feel similar to Mario 64. I remember how he could walk around this art gallery and jump into the paintings. I imagined that my website would be organized and displayed like that. You’d control an avatar or character and walk through the halls of a building, where all the things I’d made were up on the walls.

I made my first website when I was about 21, but that was intended to be a professional portfolio. All of my personal projects were being uploaded to whichever sites best housed them, such as Vimo and YouTube for my videos, SoundCloud, Bandcamp and Spotify for my music, Instagram and Flickr for my photos, and Commaful for my stories. 

I always sorta hated how spread apart everything felt. I knew that eventually I wanted a single website with everything on it. Honestly though, I felt pretty certain that it would be years and years away. It just seemed like such a massive undertaking and so unrealistic at the time. I’m very surprised that it manifested itself so early on. I really saw this as being a thing I’d work on later.

The biggest reason for starting work on it has to do with leaving Instagram. If I hadn’t left Instagram I would never have started. I remember smoking some weed, going for a walk, and just realizing that no matter how I looked at it, Instagram made me feel like shit. I always sorta knew that, but this time it was different, because I had actually tried my best to grow on Instagram. I had tried every type of content imaginable and was posting on a daily basis, over the course of like a year and a half. I’d posted songs, music videos, street photography, photoshop art. Nothing worked, and my followers actually went down and down. 

So not only did I recognize how shitty it made me feel, I also realized that it just didn’t work for me! It’s not like I was successful but felt disillusioned. I was unsuccessful AND disillusioned.It just sucked all around. So I felt that I had literally nothing to lose by leaving.

So I left, and felt better pretty much right away. The thing was, I still had the urge to share things with people. So for a while I was posting on TikTok. I started writing and recording a new original song AND music video EVERY SINGLE DAY. Nothing happened. I watched all the videos about what you’re supposed to do to grow. I was even posting 6 videos a day at one point. It was all that I was doing. Nothing happened at all. 

So I deleted TikTok eventually. It was around this point that I remember lying in bed, having smoked some weed, and imagined this home page for a website where it said my name and then had all the years I’d been alive right underneath it. It looked really cool in my head.

The website and the system I’m working on can ultimately become a really cool ecosystem. I’ve already envisioned a couple different uses.

So the website will be everything I make sorted chronologically. There will also be a similar back-end system. What I’d like to develop is a way that I can drop images into a little folder and it automatically adds the date that it was created and just prompts me to name it. It also gives me the option to automatically update the website with the new piece. There will also be an option to automatically put the things I’ve made through the RAG. I can choose the template and it’ll group them together into a new art piece, and I can easily put all the exports through over and over creating an infinite amount of new pieces. 

These can automatically upload to the website. So basically, when I place them into a folder on my computer, it automatically updates the website, very similar what to Apple has done with iCloud. I’d like the same software on my phone, so that photos or notes I create can be immediately catalogued and uploaded to the website.

One decision I gotta make has to do with the back-end. I want to make it easy to locate things. That’s more important than it is on the website. On the website it’s not super important to be able to locate specific things, at least for the time being. However, on the backend, it should absolutely be simple to locate things. I want this all to serve as a really good file management system as well. 

There’s a few different ways to sort things, and so what might make sense is to start with four folders: ‘Sounds’ ‘Pictures’ ‘Words’ ‘Videos’. As far as I can tell most things I make fit into one of those categories. Once you’re in those folders, everything is sorted by date. That should make things quite a bit easier to locate. I don’t like it for the website, because part of the point of the website is that you’re looking at an analogy of a person. You’re seeing the digital version of a person. A reflection of a person. 

A real person is chronological, I think. There is the fact, though, that humans can go to different places in their mind instantly. They can locate certain memories. So I think that eventually the website needs a similar function. I don’t like the idea of a search bar. I only want to do it if it can be done the way humans do it, where it’s instant.

Is it instant? And I realize that when humans do it, it’s not all that reliable. I’m basically asking if I should give the website the ability to think, I think.

Coffee Pain

  March 9, 2022

I drank coffee this morning and read. I wanna finish the book so badly. I’ve got 30 pages left. I’ve been reading it forever. Next I’m gonna read ‘Mila 18’. Nana bought it for my birthday. I told her to pick a book that she enjoyed reading.
I talked to Dad very briefly. He had to take another call, but he’s gonna call back a little later today. 
Later today I gotta walk Harry and I’m gonna see ‘Paper Moon’ at the Fox.
I’ve been thinking about weed more and more the last couple days. I’m just getting bored of being sober maybe? I don’t think it’s that, actually. I’ve noticed that when I get sober again, there’s this period where life starts feeling like a chore. It just feels like every day is about completing things and finishing goals. I start to feel something in myself solidifying. When I smoke I kinda stop caring about all the stuff, or maybe it’s just that I see that it doesn’t matter as much as I think. The problem, of course, is that I can’t just smoke once. I end up smoking every night. It becomes more and more. 
I also don’t want to go back to weed just because life starts to feel difficult. I really want to acquire the skills and strengths that allow me to be resilient. I don’t want to be intimidated by life. A lot of the time I just feel that I’m not doing enough, or that I’m being lazy. It’s a pretty common human emotion, I’ve found. Just talking to other people reveals that. Even people who’ve achieved so much still talk and write about feeling as though they haven’t quite done it yet, whatever ‘it’ is. 
I often think about the fact that it’s been so long since I drank. All the things I feel today with weed were felt by me when it came to drinking, only with drinking, these feelings were far far more intense. 
I was genuinely scared that my life might become worse by taking a break. I also felt pretty sure that everyday would end up being a battle. I was sure I’d have to fight with myself every time I went out to a restaurant or hung out with friends. It turns out I was wrong. There was a period where that was true. I don’t think it was that long, though. I think it was less than a month. After that I never had cravings. There’s never any part of me these days that craves drinking. 
I try and tell myself all this, and explain to myself that the same will apply to weed. There’s just this period of about a month where it’s sorta difficult, and after that it’s far easier to resist. 

A Different Colour

March 8, 2022

I just got back from a run. I didn’t go first thing in the morning because I figured it was too cold. I was really buzzing after I’d finished reading and drinking tons of coffee so I decided to try and burn off all the energy by running. It was actually nice, and not nearly as cold now that it’s noon.
As I was reading today I suddenly had this thought of making a video and showing it at the Fox. It’s never occurred to me before. I’ve literally never had that fantasy. I was picturing in my head this vision of making a video with lots of footage from around the neighbourhood, where the Beaches almost played a character. Then I had the vision of printing off lots of little posters and putting them up all around the Beaches advertising that the show would be held at the Fox Theatre, for free. I then imagined the night of the show, where a line  of people would snake around the block, full of people eager to see what the show might be like. I then imagined that I’d be inside serving popcorn as usual, not drawing any attention to myself and keeping it secret that I was the person behind the show. I imagined the auditorium packed to the brim with crowds of people on the sidewalk being turned away because the heater was full. Of course I imagined beautiful girls present, eager to see what I had created. I didn’t spend too much time thinking about the actual content of the video- just the audience's reaction. I imagined myself standing at the back of the theatre, surrounded by the sounds of laughter and excitement due to what the audience was seeing on the screen. 
I imagined the audience leaving the theatre thrilled and feeling that they’d been a part of something far exceeding their expectations. They’d be chatting amongst themselves about the video, asking one another if they’d noticed the famous locations from their neighbourhood. And of course, it wouldn’t be one of my imaginations without a beautiful girl coming up to me after it’s all done and wanting to chat. 
So yah, it was this fantasy that suddenly just exploded in my head. Just the idea of making videos and showing them at the Fox suddenly seemed so cool. The idea that the neighbourhood would grow to expect such original content from the Fox seems really cool, almost as if the Theatre was breaking into creating a studio of their own, just like how Netflix has other studios' content, but they also invest heavily in producing original content of their own.
 I also love the idea that it would all be free, and the Fox would just make money on concessions, as opposed to tickets. It seems like a fantasy I would’ve had for years, but I only imagined it this morning. I think it has to do with the book I'm reading, ‘My Life In Art’. It’s an autobiography by Konstantin Stanislavsky, and it’s made me spend more time thinking about the theatre than I generally would have. In particular, it's made me spend more time thinking about the actual ‘event’ of showing a thing. In this day and age, we’re so accustomed to releasing a thing either through stores, movie theatres, over the internet, etc. That idea of the spectators being the final piece in the puzzle is interesting to me. That constant feedback that constantly determines the course of the production. You don’t get that with a movie or an album. 
Stand up comedians and live musicians talk about that feeling a lot. They describe it as this sorta feedback loop that begins to exist over the course of the show. I like that. You can sorta get it in movies when the audience really starts to come together. You can really feel it in comedy movies. It’s like the whole audience becomes one and we’re all bouncing off of each other. 
So yah, that germ of an idea was planted in my head today. The thing is, I don’t want to get into the habit of using the audience as my starting point. I’ve learned from making my website how much the starting point determines the way the piece will manifest itself. I’ve also learned from reading this book that I’m not alone when it comes to having fantasies of playing for the crowd, and for young girls in particular. He talked a lot about so many actors, including himself early in his career, played only for the admiration of teenage girls in the audience. I can relate to that. I’ve always had this strong desire to make stuff that is true and artistic, but there’s also been this habit of using the idea of girls as almost a fuel to actually get off my ass and make stuff. It works in that it gets me to start, but I understand now that whatever foundation you begin with, it will colour the final piece in one way or another. I guess that the important thing for me is to spend time finding what foundations are most ideal. 
In the book, he’s currently talking a lot about how he sorta had this revelation that in order to make true art, one must begin within oneself. I really like that. It reminds me of meditation and the things I’ve been thinking a lot about lately in regards to feeling, and how it seems to be the only thing I ever know to be real. 
I don’t like the certainty of that statement, however. That’s a whole other thing I’ve been thinking about. It’s sorta like this habit or philosophy that I've been trying to follow, which is the idea of always trying to land somewhere in the middle when it comes to predicting things. I think I'll write about it some more later, but it has to do with trying to say ‘maybe’ whenever possible. I don’t mean outwardly, although that’s probably a good idea too. I mean inwardly, when I’m thinking. Say for example I’m thinking about some idea I have for how to make money. Usually I’ll start by asking myself ‘is there a way that I can make money that I’m totally comfortable with and doesn’t impede on my art, as well as on the feeling I instil in other people.’ Now, in the past, I would try and always say ‘yes’. I was trying to basically be as optimistic as possible, I suppose, but I was also trying to think in terms of probabilities. They always say that the universe is so large that anything you can imagine is happening somewhere. So based on this, I figured that the answer to anything I can imagine must be ‘yes.’
The problem with this, I now feel, is that the effect of saying ‘yes’ is similar to saying ‘no’, in that as soon as you pick one or the other, you’ve sorta shut a door. You’ve kind of closed yourself off in a way. Even if the answer is yes, I still get the feeling that when I say it, I’ve sorta limited myself to considering other possibilities. The other problem of saying yes, is that it tends to make me just as anxious as saying no. 
Say, for example, I ask myself ‘is it possible to make a song that makes me feel such-and-such a feeling.’ If I answer yes, all that does is tell me that the song can exist, but it doesn’t do anything to tell me how to MAKE the song. Saying yes sometimes makes me feel stupid! I feel that since that the answer is yes, but I haven’t the slightest idea of how to make the song, I must be stupid, and my talents and lack of determination are the reason for the song not yet existing in front of me! It’s this constant feeling of not really being good enough. 
Now, when I ask the same question- ‘is it possible to make a song that allows me to feel such and such an emotion’ and this time I answer ‘maybe’, I suddenly feel this funny glow in my body. In my head, I sort of envision this glowing orb. I know there’s something there, but the specifics aren’t yet determined. It’s still in the realm of probabilities. Now, this is where the weird thing happens, because assuming that what I said before was true, that anything you can imagine is happening somewhere, then you’d be silly to answer ‘maybe’. Of course the idea is possible! And yet by ignoring this and sticking with the answer of ‘maybe’ I get this wonderfully fuzzy and magical feeling that I’ve left all the channels open, and that I haven't’ closed myself off. 
My back hurts. I’m always so paranoid that it's a sign of cancer. I’ve heard that back pain is a symptom of cancer. I need to stretch more. 
I’ve been walking a dog everyday at about 3 or 4 pm. I signed up for this volunteer dog walking thing a few months back when I was super bored at home. They finally messaged me about a week ago saying someone in my neighbourhood was in need of my service! The dog’s name is Harry, and his owner is Brooke. Brooke had a hip replacement about 3 months ago and still has some pain when walking her dog. So far it’s been a very nice thing for me to do. It’s at a perfect time, since 3 and 4 is generally when my brain kinda turns off anyways. It’s a great excuse to go out and get some fresh air. It’s also been an interesting way to learn about myself. Harry is a very big dog, and he’s still only a year and half old, so I was expecting it to be difficult for me to control him. It turns out it's been very easy. He’s super calm with me, which makes me feel good about myself. It kinda tells me that I must be giving off a calm and relaxed vibe. 
I’ve also made some changes to my website. I changed the way the ‘months’ section is displayed. I’ve gotten rid of the names of the months and just gone with numbers- 1 through 12. I’ve also changed the image that they sit on. Before they sat on little thumbnails of something I’d made. Now they sit on a simple colour. Each number is on a different colour, and so the overall effect of all of them together looks quite nice and playful. 

Liquorice Pizza

     March 7, 2022 

I went to bed nice and early last night.  I was super exhausted. I had a pretty full day yesterday, although most of it involved sitting. After hanging out with Owen in the morning I went home for lunch before seeing Liquorice Pizza at the Fox with Myriam. I actually enjoyed it for the most part, although I felt it was too long. After that we got in an Uber and went straight to the Beaches Cinema to see ‘The Batman’. I was pretty bored with it, and felt that it was also too long. I don’t understand this thing of making every movie 3 hours long. We don’t need all that. If you’re gonna make your movie 3 hours long you’d better be a master of pacing, otherwise forget it. 

So I woke up at 7 am but went back to sleep for 30 minutes. During that time I had such an interesting dream. I was able to fly but I wasn’t able to stay up in the air permanently. I think I had to keep coming down in order to run along the ground and regain momentum or something. There were also kids all over the place, and I think they kept trying to grab my arms and legs to pull me down. It felt like the stakes were pretty high, in a pleasantly anxious way. 

After the dream was over I got up and went on a jog. It was very nice. There was a slight drizzle. I kinda like running in that sort of weather. As long as it’s not windy, then I’m usually good.

After the run I made coffee and did some reading. I really wanna finish this book. I’ve been reading it forever. There were a couple of weeks where I just smoked weed all the time and did no reading. I started the book over a month ago, I think. 

I also did some thinking about my website. At this stage I’m really feeling like there’s a bit of blockage. I love the very first page, where all that's displayed is my name, my signature, and the years I’ve been alive. I also really love the pages that display the content. It’s the pages in between, and the process of getting to the content that doesn’t quite feel right. I had a couple of ideas that I’d like to try out today. 

One of these has to do with the way each month is portrayed. I realized that it’s not in line with the way the very first page is shown. It’s also not in line with the second page, where the year is displayed at the top of the page, and below it are the 12 months. That’s all fine, more or less. It’s when you click on a specific month that it becomes inconsistent. As of now, you’re pulled downwards to where the month is displayed. The name of the month is then displayed at the top of the screen, and below it are square icons. As of now, if I’ve only uploaded one piece for that month, then what is displayed is a square icon corresponding to that piece, as well as 5 other boxes containing my signature. Earlier, all that was displayed was an icon for  whatever content had been uploaded. I showed the website to Gabrielle, and in regards to the design of the page that displayed the whole year, she’d mentioned that she didn’t even mind how some of the months didn’t yet have an image and instead were occupied by a smile. So I decided to include a few of these smiles for the ‘months’ page. Now I realize that if I want to be consistent with how the entire year is displayed, I should do the same for the ‘months’ section, that is, if there are 31 days in a month, then I should have 31 boxes displayed. The ones that don’t yet have anything uploaded will simply have the smile displayed. This seems so obvious to me, now. It’s basically just a calendar. The only thing that I’m a little unsure of is days where I uploaded multiple pieces of content. I guess one solution would be that, for example, if you click on the 14th, and four pieces were made that day, you’d be directed to one page that houses all four pieces, instead of multiple pages for each piece. I don’t think I’ll be able to do that at the present time, due to the way dynamic pages work on Wix, but I can try. Another option would be that when you click on the 14th, you’re taken to a page that has the contents of that day arranged in a grid, sorta like a mini calendar just for that day. From this page you click on the particular piece of content you’d like to be expanded. 

I don’t like the idea of having tons of pages within pages. I think the most beautiful way of following this approach would be similar to how iOS allows you to create a little folder on the home screen to house multiple, related apps. You just tap on the folder and it expands, revealing its contents. It doesn’t take you to a new page, it just expands. 

I like the idea that everything feels as though it’s on the same page, just very very tiny, and the process of clicking just expands and shrinks things, as opposed to this idea that everything is stored in different sections, sorta like a library. I prefer the feeling of using a microscope, in that it allows you to zoom in and out. 

This brings me back to another aspect of the website which is hopefully an easy fix. It has to do with the animation that happens when you click on a month. As of now, when you click on say, ‘January’, the page quickly scrolls downwards to wear January is displayed on the page. I don’t like the idea that everything is organized top down. It’s a subtle thing, but if possible, I’d like to keep the ‘direction’ as consistent as possible. As I said, if I had to go with just one direction, it would be this feeling of going ‘in’ and ‘out’, as opposed to left and right, up and down. 

I want to also write down a sort of brief for the website. I’d like to write down clearly what the goal is, what factors are assigned most importance, stuff like that. Those are things that steer me. Once I have those key things determined, it starts to almost feel like the website is designing itself. 

Like Lego

  March 6, 2022

Today I woke up at 9 am. I went on a jog right away. It was super beautiful out. Super sunny and warm, just lots of wind. The beach was full of people, I guess partly because it’s also Sunday. I got home and started making coffee. I went to the couch to read, only to find that I was getting a call and that it was from Owen! I thought maybe he might’ve made a mistake or something, since he hadn’t reached out to me like that in years. He said that he was house sitting in the neighborhood and asked if I wanted to meet up for coffee. I said sure, so we met up and grabbed a coffee then went down to the beach and sat. Then I gave him a tour of my place before going over to where he’s staying and hung out there for a while. 
It was nice seeing him. It felt different than every other time, and I sorta get the feeling that that’s more to do with me. I’ve just felt a bit more comfortable in my skin lately. I don’t feel threatened as much I think. It’s the kinda thing I didn’t really notice I was doing before. It’s only lately that I suddenly notice the difference in myself, which sorta highlights just how different I felt before. I think there’s a few factors to do with this. One may just be that I’m a little bit older, another being that I saw and talked with Miranda at the Fox and that totally took a weight off my shoulder. Another factor might be to do with the website. I think that’s had a big impact on me. It’s sorta amazing the things I feel I’ve learned just by building it. At first, it was just cool to kinda be able to see like a digital analogy of myself. Because everything is organized by date, it does an interesting job of showing your development over time. It feels slightly more true than cherry picking what you want people to see. The other thing is that since the majority of what’s actually on the website is things I've made, versus day to day updates, it gives an idea of where my head was at, and what I was interested in. It’s sort of a way of being able to see the inside of my head. So that was really cool. It gave me this feeling of having a stronger sense of my identity. I could see the bigger picture of my life. I could get a really quick snapshot of who I am. 
That was sorta just the beginning, because the next step was fine tuning all the little things, like fonts, buttons, placements of buttons, etc. This is the stuff I thought would just take a day or two, and once it was done I could go ahead and start focusing on the content. 
What I soon found, however, was that when I did decide to spend some time on things like fonts, it had a pretty profound difference on the way I FELT while using the website. It didn’t necessarily make it any easier to navigate, but it absolutely had an influence on how I felt while using it. So that totally opened up a rabbit hole. The more I took it seriously and the more time I spent considering the feeling, the more I found that I was learning about myself and what it means to be human! I’ve been forced to REALLY consider why, say, a button is over here and not over there. It forces me to actually think about it, and not to decide until I have a reason that I can articulate. It’s getting to the point where someone can point to any section of the website and I can explain exactly why it’s the way it is. 
That has turned out to be a pretty powerful system. It doesn't only apply to my website, I’ve found. It can apply to every and all aspects of my life. And it’s quite fun. It’s essentially the idea that before you start anything, you have a very solid foundation. I’ve been thinking of skyscrapers, and how every tall building needs an absolutely rock solid foundation from where everything else is built upon. The only way in which this analogy doesn’t quite fit, is that in life, you might want this foundation to be malleable. You might want it to be very good at adapting. It should work in the dimension of time, and with time comes change. So you don’t want it to be the sorta foundation that is enormously difficult to make changes to. You might want it to be built out of very strong rubber, or maybe even something like Lego bricks. Lego bricks are super strong, but they’re also super easy to reconfigure when necessary. I was also thinking of those floor matts that connect to one another like a jigsaw puzzle. In other words, the ability to change is built into the foundation from the very beginning. The ability to change and be nimble is given just as much consideration as the ability to be a strong and steady foundation for everything built on top.  
So anyways, Owen and I talked about a lot of things, including were we kinda felt we were at, emotionally. I told him that the biggest anxiety in my life these days has to do with my physical location in the beaches. I have this incredible location and this amazingly cheap rent. I’m just so nervous that I’m robbing myself of interesting experiences by living so far from where things are happening. 
His anxiety was sorta similar, in that he’s got a good job, a girlfriend, his health, but there’s this feeling of monotony beginning to creep in. He said it’s all just starting to feel kinda repetitive. 
When we were at his place it was really interesting to talk about design. I showed him my website and asked for some advice. That’s the kinda stuff he’s super interested in, and the world that he works and goes to school for. One thing that I really took from that conversation was the idea of having that very solid foundation at the beginning of any project. He talked about how at his work, the very first thing they do when they get a client is write up a super detailed brief. He said it’s almost like interrogating the client, and that it’s super important that everyone knows the direction and the desired destination. It also just helps the creators tremendously, because they have this document that they can always refer to. Again, it reminds me of having that beautifully simple and clear instruction manual that comes with every Lego or IKEA product. 
I find the idea of entrusting the job of assembly to the consumer to be powerful and beautiful. It’s such a subtle thing, but it checks so many boxes for me. For one thing, it’s super practical. Lego and IKEA can ship their products in smaller boxes, because they don’t need to figure out how to package the finished thing. They just package all the components. It also says something about how they feel about their customers. To me, it says that they trust their customer. They see them as being smart and intelligent. They believe that the consumer can accomplish perhaps the most important stage of the whole process, which is the final assembly. It’s a subtle thing, but it totally makes me feel, as a consumer, that I’m being treated with respect and that I’m not being talked down to. 
Owen clearly spends a lot of time in that world, because he already knew all of this stuff and could articulate it really well right back to me. The part that he found a bit problematic, the thing most people have mentioned, is that at the end of the day the website doesn’t really communicate what its purpose is. People don’t really know what the point is. In some ways, that means I’ve succeeded, because up until now I kinda wanted people to have that feeling. I wanted people to find it beautiful, easy to use, and super straightforward but I also wanted them to be left with this sense of ‘what’s the point?’
The reason I like that is because to me it’s the feeling that I almost always arrive at when I look at the world around me. It sometimes feels like the harder I look, the more I pay attention and study the world around me, the more I see this beautiful complexity and variety that appears to be built upon a foundation of meaninglessness. I don’t mean that in a cold or depressing way. It just seems sorta confusing. And regardless of how it makes me feel, I figured that I should try to instill that feeling in the website. 
So yah it was nice to talk about that stuff with Owen. It’s made me really wanna write down what I want this to be about. 
The other thing I’ve been thinking a lot about is the bigger picture of all of this. I don’t want to do this just for me. I want other people to be able to experience what I’ve learned. It’s interesting to kinda learn how important it is to me that I have some sort of legacy. I want to leave an impact on the world. For most of my life I figured I would try to do that in the realm of art. I wanted to make stuff that last for hundreds of years. I wanted to be like a Leonardo Da Vinci. The only problem is that I also like leaving something behind that can actually help people in a more tangible way. For example, I sometimes wonder about the feelings that architects and engineers must feel after they’ve designed and built a bridge and they see the thousands and thousands of lives it impacts every day. That must be an incredibly powerful feeling. I remember watching a documentary about the original World Trade Center where the construction workers talked about the pride they felt knowing that they were building something that was important and was meant to stand for hundreds of years. They also talked about how when they fell, it was a bit like losing a child. 
So anyways, that’s all to say that I like the idea of taking what I’ve learned and turning it into something that people can use. It would be similar to Lego, in that there’s a pretty clear destination, but you have to do all the assembly. It’s meant to be like a sort of education. You learn about the value of having values, and at the end of it, you actually have something you can use. The part I really love, the part that does not apply to Lego, is that everyones finished thing would look different. I was thinking about the human body, how at first glance we all look more or less identical. Two arms, two legs, a head, two eyes, etc. But once you get a little closer and do a little digging you suddenly find that we’re all different in unimaginable ways.  
So I feel like something in that area could really satisfy me. I get to be artsy, since it deals with design, but I also get to offer something to the world. A tool that people can use to basically design an analogy of themselves, all the while discovering themselves in the process. 

A Pain In The Ear!

 March 5, 2022

    Today I woke up a little earlier than I was planning. I set my alarm for 9 am, but I ended up waking around 8. I’d been at work until 12:45 am the night before, at the Fox. I’m gonna go there now in a second to watch ‘Nightmare Alley’. 
So anyways, today I got up and went for a jog in the first time in a long long while. It’s just been so freezing, and it doesn’t help that I run right along the lake, so the wind just totally whips all the motivation out of me. I went today though. I felt good afterwards, but it sucked in the moment. I normally love running- with music that is. As long as I have music, or even a jogging partner, than I’m good. Oh, and as long as it’s not like running against wind that has the strength of a jet before take off, only this air is not hot but cold. Very very fucking cold.  
My ears hurt so bad when I got home. It’s something to do with the combination of those AirPods and the wind. Normally the AirPods don’t bother me, as they’re the ones with the little gummies on the end. When I have to run with them on a cold day, it’s a different story. I don’t know why that is. Something to do with the air pressure? I don’t know. My ears have always been a bit sensitive, though. 
So after I got home I had print off a new passport application. I needed Jason to sign it for me. The application requires a guarantor to sign it, and so he’s my guarantor. He was leaving for the airport in a couple hours so I needed to get his signature before he left. I had a pretty frustrating experience trying to get the paper printed. The printer was just giving me a pretty hard time. I realize now that I probably should have started by just restarting everything. Ithink that’s what worked in the end.
After he’d signed it I read on the couch for the rest of the morning. That’s been my routine lately and I really really love it. I wake up, run, then make coffee and just read on the couch until noon. Right now I’m reading ‘My Life In Art’ by Stanislavsky. He was a Russian actor and stage director, the latter being what he’s most known for. It’s a really interesting book. It’s sorta long, but he talks a lot about things that I’ve been wondering and thinking about for the last few months, mainly just topics about art, why we put ourselves through the process, when and where the payoff is, and what we should be aiming for. That’s kinda the thing that this book has helped me with. A few months ago I just could not figure out what the real purpose was. I didn’t know if it actually mattered if the finished thing was any good, or if the DOING of the thing was what mattered at the end of the day. And I don’t mean doing it quickly and then moving on. I mean spending the time to labour over your art, intensely, only to feel at the end that it sucks. And by ‘suck’ I mean that it does not do for your ‘soul’ what you’d intended. More specifically, it doesn’t take the observer, emotionally, to the place you’d intended. 
It’s perfectly possible that a piece can fail in this respect, but succeed in an area you hadn’t intended. That seems to happen a lot.
 I, however, was sorta plagued by this idea that you strive for a thing, an ideal, or like a feeling, and the finished thing does not articulate or express that feeling, and so you’re left with this question of if it MATTERS that you didn’t reach the goal. Maybe the point was that you TRIED. That’s what I don’t know. At the end of the day is trying and succeeding just as good as trying and failing? If there is a God, are they equally as pleased either way? 
So anyways the book has been nice because he really talks about how important it is to go for truth. Truth can be ugly, it can be quiet, loud or whatever. He seems to really feel that the job of the artist is first to find a truth, and from there practise and refine one's abilities in order that they may be able to translate that truth, or rather, through their skills, be a vessel for that truth to emanate and be understood by other humans. 
 Then I go to the dining room and just work on whatever I gotta work on for 2 hours. I try to do the 2 hours all at once, but some days I gotta break it up into chunks.