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roots below and canopy above

2023-01-16

6 minute read

I had a good weekend, but my limit for doing things is far lower than it used to be. I had an event on sunday night I really wanted to go to but I ended up being too tired.

Three years ago I had a part of a poem stuck in my head, SAMSON, 1674 by Rosanna Warren

  1. There’s a kind of defeat that resembles victory.
  2. There’s a temple raised up only in the mind
  3. and another to be pulled down
  4. in dream, arms wrapped around massive pillar

Lately I'm hoping for the inverse: A kind of victory that resembles defeat. I feel increasingly less able to manage my own energy and goals. Quitting my job was the only way to become unstuck, but it's not left me much better off. With all the time I've gained I've made very little progress on anything important. I'm no more fit that I was before, my portuguese and spanish have not progressed anymore than they might have while working. I don't have any finished projects, just half started and underwhelming repositories.

My only consolation about whether or not quitting my job was the right choice is this: It's the only thing I could do.

If there's anything I've learnt in the last few months it's that I have very little will to power for anything. It doesn't take much effort to quit, and by the grace of God I did it.

I'm being dramatic

I don't want to qualify my pessimism with a list of caveats. Ducking under any expression of doubt limits me. Things can be bad, a lot of things are.

and yet

Today I want to review some of my projects for 2022. I will undoubtedly praise their success, qualifying the time and effort and justifying the means to get there. If I can't contradict myself in my own journal then it's not worth writing one.

These aren't in chronological order, I'm trying have them fit together thematically.

return.horse

The most low energy yet extensive project to date. I've spent just as much time on the tooling as I have on the project, and I'm not finished yet. Roots below and canopy above. It's satisfying to have it on-going, a project that just keeps growing with little changes. I forget that I've been doing it (and I often forget to do it at all) but it's still there, patient and easy to pick back up. Easy to get back on the saddle. It's also funny in a way that's both helped me make some good new friends and encouraged my relationship with some of my other friends.

art school

I spent a lot of time hanging out at the art school this year. I've never been asked this much about my "creative practice". A window into a life I could lead.

Surrounded by people who care about making art and seeing art. Trying new things, failing, projects without a job at the end. Critical interest in 'practice', general understanding of form making and mediums. Lots of piercings, lots of ciggarrettes. Hot people talking high culture. Everybody familiar with Anni Albers and weaving.

plenty to cry about

Weaving was an exciting new hobby last year, culminating in a laboured tapestry of a crying boy. I learnt a lot about my creative struggles and what I like in a work. I'm not immune to fetishizing hand-crafts, and I get frustrated easily. I also get excited easily, and I do look forward to exploring the limits of weaving more. I understand the disdain for pictorial representation in weaving, and how the medium doesn't make it at all easy, but I can't deny how much joy a little picture in a chunky tapestry gives me. I'm interested in exploring this more, in trying to pull it into manageable bites some how.

a tapestry of a crying face

small project wringer

A recent, last minute success, but also a collection of two years of effort. In 2020 I clocked onto my shortcomings around "project methodology" and started trying to articulate them. I'm by no means finished, and I don't think I'll ever be.

The small project wringer was a big step forward; Actual written rules to guide my planning and focus my energy.

gopub bloug

This journal itself is a great success in focussing my energy. On top of that, the site builder I made for it is great. Identifying what I want, building it fast, and learning a new programming language while I'm at it. Though I still don't know how to a lot of stuff in golang, it's a success to have built a useful program with it.

2022 I felt myself get far closer to understanding product design and development. How hard it is to know what you actually want, and what shortcuts you can take to find out. If we'd been made to do this at university, how much more understanding we might have had!

I'm sure I could read a book, and probably have read one already, that talks about the importance of testing your assumptions soon in the design process - I'm all the better for finding out myself.

a quick break

I've been writing for a while now, and I'm getting tired. I'll try to hoon through the next few points

Bee death

It was fun to rehash an old joke, and see the improvement in my twice-a-year practice of 3D modelling and rendering.

Bike Tricks

The first and possibly only zine I've with VR. Fun to make, torturous process, eventually an exercise in minimalism.

Que Será El Amor Del Sol

People really responded well to this one, I need to think about what that means.

Crayonemoji.art

Never before have I worked so hard on something and then felt no desire to use it. I feel, though, a second wind blowing through. A growing interest awoken by my brief foray into ascii art

   +
   A_
  /\-\
 _||"|_
~^~^~^~^

Not dangerous enough

Fun succesful Jam with Giles, one of many (that I won't include here just yet). Riding a bike is dangerous, but it's Not Dangerous Enough

pompom

Another exercise in knowing what I want and building it. I imagine a utopia where anyone can exercise problem solving and building tools in their own lives with computers and what ever other technology they put their hands to. Also another learning experience about finishing something, and how far the distance is between being nearly finished and being finished.

2022

This isn't even all I did in 2022! It was a huge year and I had an awesome time. I don't always feel that way though. I struggle to enjoy things. There's a mire in my mind and I am constantly getting stuck in it. There’s a temple raised up only in the mind, and another to be pulled down.

Things I didn't cover:

what else?

I finished the article about Hillary Mantel.

Of course it, it follows that if you're not a mother you're not going to be a grandmother, but that's not something you think of in your thirties. So the loss keeps changing its shape.

The author is Larissa MacFarquhar.

I finally patched my jeans: a patched hole in some jeans the inside of a patched hole in some jeans

listening to

Rozi Plain's new album - Prize

questions