Week 43-67
What was I made for, expressive typography, balancing life and graduate applications
Here I am again, 168 days after my last weekly update, sitting on my work desk next to a sunny window. It feels odd to do this after so long, to re-start on a promise long broken. Even then, the activity feels oddly comforting. Being here means that I am finally taking back control of my life.
The past few months have been difficult, to say the least. They have shown me how entangled my present has become with my past, and the horrendous impact that it may make on my future. Slowing things down and being cognisant of the present has never been my forte, but that is exactly what writing on a Sunday afternoon allows me to do – which is why I have decided to restart this newsletter, this time for myself.
[Thoughts] What was I made for (and why that’s the stupidest question to ask yourself)
I used to know but I'm not sure now
What I was made for
What was I made for?
- Lyrics from the song What Was I Made For by Billie Eilish, for the movie Barbie.
Most adults I know can conjure up an answer for the question: what’s the point of it all, for you?. I’m assuming that, since they can come up with an answer, they have thought about it at some point of their life.
I don’t know whether it’s my age or my past experiences that pushed me into trying to answer this for myself in the last few months. I read up quite a bit. I probed into nihilism, hedonism, existentialism, some other isms, and even bought a book by Jeff Thorburn that presents a collection of life philosophies by famous people.
In the pursuit, I realised that I will not be able to copy-paste any aphorism into my life and call it “my” philosophy of life. It had to be my own creation. At this point of my life, I am reluctant towards the idea of a grand purpose of life; maybe there is none. Your birth is simply biological output, so will your death be. As Richard Bach wrote in his book Illusions:
“Listen,' he said. 'It's important. We are all. Free. To do. Whatever. We want. To do.”
Maybe this is it, maybe the larger world will continue to live the way it wants to and all I have to do is choose how my little world exists in it. No god-given, ultimate purpose of life but a series of tiny choices that define my existence on this planet. And the best part?
It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else.
[Self-Realisations] I think I’m into expressive typography
In the months that I was away, I ended up making 2 films (one on my birthday), created my own painting algorithm and wrote a bunch of computer programs. In many of them, I manipulate letters with algorithms and the goal is to better convey the intended message.
Expressive typography has been around for decades, so there’s nothing particularly new about what I’m trying to do. However, in a conversation with Shaunaq (my mentor at Science Gallery Bengaluru, he pointed out that I (as an artist) have a natural inclination of combining code with typography. I didn’t realise it at first but it’s true, I’ve always messed around with the display of letters (with or without code).
[Experiments] Balancing life with different kinds of work
In August, I was struggling to balance the different buckets of my life – work, social, play, creative practice, graduate applications, etc. I created a tracker on my door to ensure that I wasn’t going astray, and that I was giving enough time to all the buckets of my life.
Each night, I would block out colours for the activities that I did during the day. While looking at the chart again, after a month, I realised that it wasn’t quite balanced.
My mentor keeps telling me that I involve myself in too much cognitive work, which I now realise is true. I may be doing something that I bucket under “creative practice” but it might be a cognitive heavy task (such as resolving code for a program). There might be a better way to ensure that I have a balanced day and I’m trying to identify the distinct types of work I do on a daily basis. So far, I have the following (which is feel is not exhaustive):
[Work] Graduate applications and my portfolio
The past few months have also been a race for me to finish my graduate applications. It has truly been an intense activity, something that I did not predict would take up so much of my time and energy.
I am almost over the finish line but find myself in a spot where it’s not naturally coming to me. I can’t sit everyday at a stipulated time and find the words for all the required writing. Interestingly, this past week, I did not spend any time doing that activity. I made some design changes to my portfolio, which is still a work-in-progress (has been for the past 10 months and I won’t be surprised if it is always a WIP).
I think it’ll come to me. I can’t force it. I have a month to send it in and the only major tasks left are the writing assignments (which I have a rough draft of). I’ll make it in time. I don’t want this to dictate my life again, like it has for the past 10 months. Sure, it is something that I need to do by a deadline and I will. Will I regret not spending enough time on it? No, because I spent all the damn time that I could have. I wont have any regrets.
I asked, with everything I did not
have, to be born. And nowhere in any
of it was there meaning, there was only the asking
for being, and then the being, the turn
taken. I want to say that love
is the meaning, but I think that love may be
the means, what we ask with. (An excerpt from Sharon Old's I cannot say I did not)