Week 68
Portfolio & being an impatient creator, a tiny life philosophy, IDEO layoffs, accepting my changing body and feeling the flow while filmmaking.
Not much to write about this week. Most of my days went by in a lull, as evidenced by my new daily writing habit. Being was the hardest obstacle I overcame this week and I’m a teeny-bit proud of it.
It’s okay. Some weeks arrive straight from the gutter, with your name in star-spangled letters; while others arrive unexpectedly to propel you to the clouds. This fluctuation is the larger picture and it is one of my journeys to accept it.
[Work & Self-Realisations] Making my portfolio public and accepting my impatience
Over the 10 months that it took me to make my portfolio, shuffling between making elements one pixel smaller and two pixels bigger, I understood something about myself – I’m the kind of person who needs to finish something and move on, otherwise it interferes with any other work that I try to do. My brain does not seem to be equipped to create rigid boundaries between different pieces of thought. Every section is permeable, flowing into each other for better or for worse.
On 7th November, I spent 17 hours working on my computer. As I stared at that horrific number, something snapped between me & my portfolio – I managed to say, "that’s it”. The next morning I slapped screenshots of my work on some pretty mockups and put it out everywhere. The very moment I did, I was able to let go and a surge of ideas for the next one took over my brain.
That’s what platforms such as Instagram and YouTube have been able to do for me – I make something, put it out and it allows me to move on. I expected commercial opportunities out of this practice when I first started. 2 years later, I understand that all it does is afford me creative opportunities. I get to move on.
That’s who I am – I make and I move on. What I desire is not the thing that I’ve made, but the thrill of making something new and I want that as often as possible. I’m an impatient creative practitioner, and I love it.
[Philosophies] This was the best I could have done today (and that’s great!)
Building on my previous exploration on philosophies to live by, I think I’ve finally arrived at one that works well for me.
I was sick most of the days in this week. The usual coughing, sneezing, wheezing and hammering headaches; but I handled it better. Usually, whenever I fall sick because of my mismatch with Mumbai’s environment, I tend to go into a spiral of unproductive guilt. This time, I recognised it just before it was about to happen. I promptly took up a whiteboard marker and wrote this:
I think if I’m able to convince myself of this every night, I might sleep better and stop feeling the guilt that I feel of not doing enough. I expect too much. As Billy Joel rightly sang in his song Vienna:
Slow down, you crazy child
You're so ambitious for a juvenile
[Articles] IDEO layoffs
This past week, IDEO laid off 25% of its employees and closed their Munich & Tokyo offices (places that I actually wanted to apply to a few years back).
I found their reasons interesting:
IDEO popularised design thinking, making it accessible to everyone. However, they did it so well that people now believe an external expert is not required. I love how a “design thinking workshop” is on the same level as rigorous training & practice on the field. That’s like putting video game drivers in an F1 race-car and expecting them to win.
It’s ironical that their success led to their failure. I wonder what the future of design holds, whether it comes off as something so simple that experts are not required for it or it is understood as a domain of expertise and respected equally in the professional world.
[Pondering] Exercise aversion & accepting a version of myself
I haven’t worked out in the last 5 months.
What’s strange is that, a couple of years ago, I devoted myself to this activity and now I can’t get myself to do it anymore. In the last year & a half, I tried to force myself to go to the climbing wall, the gym and the running track, thinking that one day it’ll start to feel good again. But it didn’t. The activities don’t feel like they’re a part of me anymore.
I believe that a lot of it has to do with the place I’m in currently – Mumbai. It’s not pleasant to go to the tiny, cramped climbing wall, an overcrowded gym or a running track with a queue. The only two activities that feel remotely pleasant in the moment are playing sports and walking – both of which I can’t do everyday for different reasons. However, I am trying to partake in each of the activities atleast twice a week but it’s not remotely on the same physically intensive level as I was used to.
It was my father who presented the challenge of staying in impeccable physical shape. I clearly remember him saying after I playfully taunted him with my 15-year-old athletic physique, “wait till you’re an adult and then we’ll talk, when you have to balance your life & job with your physique”. Since then, I’ve always thought of my body in a certain way and now it’s become socially linked with my identity.
Yes, I couldn’t do it. I failed. I’m on the way to looking like a couch-potato but that’s okay. My life in the world is very different to what his life was and I can’t put myself up to his standards. I’m me – mediocre, weak, dark, shy, not-6-feet-tall, overly-sensitive, insecure and immature.
But that’s who I am – more of some things, less of other things, winner of few, loser of many. And I’m doing a good job of being me, even if I may not like ‘me’.
[Creative Practice] Filmmaking and feeling the flow
Yesterday night, I felt like I tried activities but they didn’t return in happiness. So I wondered, what is happiness and explored all the clips I collected in 2022. Made a film in 2 hours, compiling the happiest moments I recorded during the last year.
While making it, I felt like I was in a state of creative flow. Things were happening, my brain didn’t feel inhibited and something beautiful came out. I think filmmaking is a medium that I personally enjoy. In the last few films, I’ve just been playing around with the same set of footage but the outputs always communicate what I wish to say. I don’t know if people get it though but, in all honesty, I don’t think I care.
It works really well for me and I enjoy making them. That’s what matters right now.