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#1
Today is 16th May 2024, I am sitting on my desk with 2 candles lit and my laptop. It is 7 pm, the sun has set. It was raining in the afternoon and the power has been cut since. I don’t have a fan switched on or anything that makes a background sound. All I can hear is my typing with my thoughts. In focus is the screen and the page on which I am typing. All I smell are the mixed fragrances of the two candles. The light of these candles subtly falls on the other elements on my desk, they are out of focus but I notice them. Books, a canvas painting, a prayer book, a calendar, some art sketchbooks, a mannequin used for figure drawing, earbuds, a laptop sleeve, a desk clock, an iPad, a pen stand and a small beige-coloured vase. The flames of the candles are dancing, they cannot sit still, just like my mind when I was having coffee earlier.
There has been silence in my mind since the moment I started typing. Since that moment my attention went from being inside my head to describing this moment. It amazes me how simple it is to get back to the present. But sometimes, the thoughts in my brain are so loud, that I find it difficult.
I started a canvas painting a month ago, it is 70% done, I will finish it soon. It is one of those works that I really like. I will give it a title but I don’t really know what it means. I always think of titles while I am painting. I ask myself, what would I name this feeling that I am experiencing right now while painting this? And I will name it the first thing that comes to my mind. I try to make sense of my work while it's being done or after it’s done, but never before. Not when the idea comes to me. Before I have a clear visual set in my brain and I am thinking of the best possible way to compose it onto the canvas. Most of the time it comes out from my brain onto the canvas looking completely different but with the same essence. And the essence is what makes me satisfied and content with the work.
Nowadays, I am hosting art club meet-ups every alternate weekend. These are entirely offline meet-ups. I am finding it difficult to communicate to others what doing without thinking is. Everyone likes to pick an idea and work on it. Or think if something will look good and then draw it. I want to push them to go beyond this box that is our singular mind and let the idea pick them. I am thinking about how I learnt to do this, the journey of learning this skill and how I can replicate the process while keeping it unique to each one of them. The biggest hurdle is the hard skills. It is the harsh truth, I can only draw what I have trained myself to draw. If I don’t know the alphabets, I cannot form words and sentences. Now, with this club I didn’t think of making it an art class, maybe I will need to do it, occasionally. I am confused about the direction, but this club is fun, almost everyone in it has a very unique personality and is there with curiosity, that is one thing I love the most. Curiosity.
I started working from home 2 weeks ago and life feels perfect now. I have lots of time for myself and everything else I can do outside of work. So I am getting away from social media as much as possible. I want to value this time and not waste it. I am trying to consume long-form content as much as possible even if it is a sitcom. I am trying to fix my attention span a day at a time. I started reading The Creative Act by Rick Rubin again, and I promised myself to not leave it in the middle this time, I am watching Gilmore Girls and I love the bond the mother and the daughter have. I am back to reading my webtoon stack, and some blogs on substack. This is more fun than twitter and instagram. I might stop using twitter and instagram soon. I won’t delete accounts, I have connected to the best people there, but I will be there to create and document, as I have always intended but failed.
I have also been working on 2 side projects, and both of them are so fulfilling, that I will cry.
I want to be fit, it has been 2 years since I dedicated myself to being fit. Earlier it was experimenting with a lot of different types of diet and doing exercise at home, but now, I have joined a gym. I have had a meniscus injury for a few years and that led to me exercising less and gaining a good 8-10 kgs in past 7 years. I will be joining a rehab with a personal trainer from today. I hope I completely recover from this in the coming months. I miss running and trekking and doing all the intense HIIT workouts and the MMA.
There was a time in 2019 when I was learning taekwondo and pottery at the same time. The stillness needed for both these activities was so much that it helped me regulate and let my intense anger out in a healthy way. One is gentle, the other is rough and hurts, but both require a crazy amount of focus on the stillness of the mind, a calm beating of the heart. I loved the way I was forced to come in the present and just do in both these activities.
This blog, I was just thinking out loud. And I could do that without feeling insecure. I have come a long way with feeling secure as I am. And for that, I am eternally grateful to my life and the universe or god for giving me this life. Experiencing this life has been the most beautiful work of art and I will keep on experiencing it with my full heart and soul.
PS - A comic blog is coming soon, stay tuned :)
'let the idea pick them' <3