Goals (When You're Exceptionally Bad at Keeping Them)

You know what, I try to be a very decent human being. I try to be nice, kind, helpful. But when it comes to following through with my own plans, I'm completely the most terrible person in the world. If there ever was a Bad Place like in the TV show The Good Place, that's what I'd go to the Bad Place for. Disobeying myself, when I only had my best interest in mind. (Mama, if you're reading this, don't feel too bad. It wasn't just you when I was growing up. I never listen to myself either.)

I'm a huge fan of planners, planning systems, goal setting strategies, spreadsheets, totally interested in setting goals. Yes. A hobby I've loved since 2007 when I went to college and used my very first planner. Setting goals? Sign me right up and I'll even sticker-bomb the borders. But actually doing what's on the list? Bye.

This JanJan Comics character is me, 100%:

"I've listed all the things that need to be done."
"I don't want to do them anymore."
Facebook: JanJan Comics

I've tried different ways to keep myself motivated. I've tried setting Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic/Relevant, Time-Bound Goals. Tried. Now that I'm older and wiser *cough*, I realise that I was built to be kind of very incompatible with this model, personality-wise. The way I think is not solid at all, it's more like water. It molds itself to whatever the vessel is, and with no vessel, it seeps through cracks, and spreads everywhere, getting everything wet, until my goal metastasizes into a bunch of things that are all it, but not really it at all. So Specific and Measurable is out of the question. Attainable and Realistic/Relevant? I question myself far too much to trust my justifications about anything when I write the goals, and always end up challenging my past self. Reality kind of keeps changing depending on my mood, and Time-Bound.... Well. I've spent the last 15 years of my life pushing deadlines and I've become too desentisized. My feeling of time is so warped and needs a lot of help, even now.

So like any self-respecting, aging maturing human would do, I stopped trying to act like my personality is super fluid and flexible funky fresh, and accepted that, partly, the fluidity of my personality itself is the fixed part of my personality that is too set in stone, that I need to revise. What a paradox.

I started accepting that things need to be simpler, much much simpler, for me to even remember them. So I changed my style completely and brought things down to just the essentials. Instead of a long list of specific goals every year that I always end up looking at and feeling badly about, I write attitudes that need to be changed in me (those were always easier for me to do weirdly enough), usually healthier ways to relate to stress. Hehe. As an anxious person, this has helped me a lot.

Then I just started using my planner to remind myself of things that absolutely need to be done, instead of peppering it with a bunch of aspirational stuff like "write a... song..?"... It helps a lot that I have a day job and really have things to put into my calendar. It helps a lot to just simply be able to tick boxes.

I've also known for a while that when motivation does fly by for whatever reason, you need to hop right on that elusive beast and hold on for dear life. So I've always been waiting...

Though sometimes, inspiration or motivation is so distracting and possessing that it's hard to stay accountable with any written goal

Sometimes, it's a near-death experience, sometimes, even scraping your knee (happened to me one time. I was SO motivated for the next few months), and sometimes it's just a new year coming by.

This year end is particularly significant to me. We are having our wedding on the first day of the year, (more on that in a separate post, maybe) and it's the beginning of a new decade. Objectively, that doesn't mean anything, but there are just things like that that I choose to ascribe meaning to, for the sake of fun and a semblance of "meaningfulness" in life.

While getting ready one day, I came across this video from Lavendaire, and a certain magical set of different conditions (the fact that I had just had coffee and L-theanine, it was the end of the month and it was time to start December on my planner, etc etc etc) just did the thing  for me, and I felt the dragon coming towards my way. So I HOPPED ON OBVIOUSLY

Again, it took a very particular set of conditions, and it was really mostly luck. But I was inspired enough to make brand-new-spanking goals, and for the FIRST TIME in a LONG TIME, they actually feel tailored to me. They are "S-M-A-R-T" yet fit my personality.

If you're as bad at accomplishing goals as I am, Lavendaire has a bunch of very helpful tips in the video I linked. But basically, here are the ones that helped me the most, or at least my interpretation of them:

1. Start Small: Attainable and Realistic shouldn't mean "technically possible" to you, if you're like me at all. it should mean "I'm likely going to be able to push myself to do that, the way I am now, even under bad conditions"... Therefore, instead of saying "I'll do 10 pushups every morning" I'm starting with "I'm going to move every morning, even if it's just stretching. I'll do what feels good." That may seem too small, but it's still an improvement from what I normally do. Build a ladder. Don't attempt to do parkour if you're not the type.

2. Build Momentum: The small mini-goals shouldn't be random. R means Relevant or Realistic, not Random. Even though they're small, they should be the mini-version of what you eventually want to do. In my case, my big goal is "to have discipline, consistency, and accountability" because all the things I've been trying to chase and failing to all this time, namely mental and physical health, a calmer disposition, being able to start and finish passion projects, all hinge on the premise that I would be able to keep doing things I set out to do, and build habits that I am able to sustain often, if not daily.

3. Chunk Actions Together: Chunking is a memory technique where you put stuff together with a thing you know you'll remember or something you'll do anyway. Like putting your inhaler next to your car keys because you know you can't leave without your keys.

Planning the actions to meet my goals has always been my biggest goal-setting roadblock. I'm too impulsive and my days are too unstructured, even with a job, that I find it hard to put action items within the day and follow them. This time around, the idea of a "Morning Routine" had been on the front of my mind because it's so trendy in the self-improvement world, and I thought, what better way to chunk things together than to put all my small goals together in the morning? I've been needing motivation to get off the bed when I wake up anyway. So this makes it Attainable and Realistic to me. And if I get a task done at the start of the day, I start off every day feeling accomplished. This also gives it a Time-Bound element.

4. Tracking: I've NEVER.. And I repeat,  N E V E R been able to track anything successfully in my life. Not once have I ever filled out a monthly tracker in my Bullet Journal, and I know I'll probably miss some days on the current one I started. But to me, tracking doesn't have to be a physical, complete record of my actions (especially because that's going too far into the edge of my Attainable zone). Tracking to me is just a way to keep myself accountable, and to me, a visual prompt, as long as I can easily see it when I need to, can do it.

So out of cardboard, I created a list of my simple Morning Routine that I made that ticks all the small habits that I want to build up on. Every morning, I can look at this to track if I'm done for the morning, before heading out.

I might write about this on a separate post, too. Again, Maaaybee

Now I've been somewhat successful so far .but I have yet to see what happens once I come back to regular work days. My goals are very small, yes. It may look like I'm going too easy on myself, but really. I've been at the other end of it when I let momentary ambitiousness or impatience of past-me's set booby traps for lazy present-me to fall into.

What's important to me is that the changes last. Because I've made it clear to myself that my goal is to build habits, and an attitude that is more consistent and accountable with things. The intensity of the habits are not what's important for now. It's building the muscles that I'll need to eventually accomplish my goals. That's the plan, anyway.

I'm hoping to remember to update this space after a couple of weeks to see if I get to keep at this, or if I revise anything. Right now I feel like coming back here to write about these changes I'm trying out. But I'm trying to go easy on adding more goals to fail at. So I won't add this to my list, and just hope I remember anyway, and find time to write. That way, it's like a bonus. Hehe. (I could also chunk it with my journalling habit, who knowss)

See you again soon, Maybe!

WTF: The Good Place: Human-ness reimagined

To get into what my ideas about the afterlife were like in what feels like a past life, without getting much into why, (I will really really try!) I used to think that whatever was ~beyond~ would be a timeless space, unbound by whatever simple three-dimensional idea we have of "places". That made thinking about what "Heaven" or "Hell" (or even "Purgatory".. I know, I said I won't get into it!) would, or even could be like was very tiring and confounding. I can't be the only kid who thought that was way too simple!

So of course I ended up just half-accepting what "people-who-somehow-knew-even-if-they're-still-alive" would claim, and what the general consensus around me seems to think at any point in time, (which was never consistent of course!!!) to save some energy for the life I'm supposed to be living in accordance to ..whatever dictates what it takes to get into whatever The Good Place is after this life, which now I can't focus on, because afterlife. Argh! I'm such a Chidi!

Anyway, that's all behind me now, and I said I won't get into it, so I won't, but all of that stress I had provided the perfect contrast for me to really, really, really appreciate this show.

The Good Place is an NBC/Netflix show about the afterlife. Specifically, Eleanor Shellstrop, who gets toured around by Michael, the Arch...itect of the Good Place. I will not get much into the story, because it's so twisty in such a GREAT way. I do not have the heart to spoil ANYTHING for anyone. So here's just a simple list of what I appreciate about the show:

1. The lightness of it. Of course if you're the type of person who might find this heretical or sacrilegious to talk about afterlife things with any degree of lightness, then I might not be selling this to you well right now, but I have faith in humankind, and I want to believe you will still find something to lightheartedly chuckle about. But I love how it approaches this topic, that used to give younger me so much doom and gloom, with so much lightness, and yet:
2. Insight. Make no mistake - just because it is lighthearted, does not mean it is empty and vapid, or even pokes fun at the striving of humans to be better people! On the contrary, I think, to it's core, the show is about dissecting and really taking an honest look at goodness, that doesn't favor any group of people. What is goodness, how does intention factor into it, and what is a well-lived life?
3. The depth of each character: They take on tropes for the sake of caricaturish hilarity in line with the perky mood of the show, but as you watch more episodes, your understanding of each character deepens, and they turn from being two-dimensional character tropes, to actually very satisfying archetypes that illustrate a lot of what being human is like!

They are starting their final season this month, and I do admit that it went more and more loopy and random after the main crux was fully developed and resolved in the 2nd season, but if you haven't yet, and have the time and the Netflix subscription to do so, definitely give it a watch! It's a Good Show.

WTF: The show Coffee Prince ...was ahead of its time!

Unlike me, who is, effectively, twelve years behind on this.

Super late reaction, I know, but I'm sure I'm not the only one, as Netflix had just recently added it to their roster.

On my birthday, Beardy and I were chilling in my mom's living room the whole afternoon. My family was out on churchly duties but had left Coffee Prince playing on Netflix, and we sort of just left it on, paying attention every now and then as we go about our business. I started paying real attention about half-way in the story.

You see, I had my doubts. Everytime I see gender-bending outside of what I percieve to be LGBT-safe contexts, I'm afraid to pay attention because I'm afraid to see transphobic things. And knowing that many of my friends have seen this show, I did not want to feel bad or worried. I'm not really the type that enjoys catching people make mistakes, like what many people seem to do in our current call-out culture. I see too clearly how damaging ideas are formed and do not feel free to blame any one particular individual a lot of the time. I just see how systematic the problem is and end up feeling quite bad. But after watching the rest of it, I actually ended up feeling quite good! Such a nice, weird, fun, but heartwarming show. Here are some points!

EUN-HYELMET IS SO CUTE DEMMET

Subversion that isn't merely for the sake of shocking: I have to admit I judged it pretty hastily. "What? How could they not know that she's a girl after she took her helmet off?! Come on." I thought it was purely an immature "BoYs aRe liKe thiS bUt GiRls are norMalLy nOt! heuk heuk" shock-and-awe type of humor, but the more I watched it, the more I saw it as a tool to be able to write a well-rounded female character. When the characters make statements about gendered expectations, it doesn't feel like the show is taking a stance, but rather, it feels like it is reflecting a realistic portrayal of how people currently think about gender, and how when we get over it, more organic, diverse ways of being a woman or being a man are allowed into existence.

Like the cute friendship of these two!!!

Of course, there was still space for caricatures for humor, and this doesn't necessarily get used for all the characters in the show, but you see that perspective shine through every now and then. Remember, this was 2007 so that was pretty great already! It was subversive for the sincere purpose of writing realistic people.


Characters with deep emotional depth: There isn't a switch in the hearts of the characters that can be clicked on with the use of a grand gesture plot device. When they get hurt, there's a struggle between holding and moving on. It takes time, and you can see them negotiate and deal with their feelings. They ask for space, and explain how they feel.

When Hang-sung and Yoo-joo make up, or not? or yes, or no? Yes. They did.

The male lead in particular is really shown as immature, and even though they seemed to make that look "cute" at times, I didn't feel like it was ever portrayed as valid. It is often repeated that he needs to "grow up". The female lead, even when she inadvertently hurts his feelings by choosing to study abroad, is shown to be reasonable for doing this, and rather than breaking the relationship off, the two are shown maturing in their own ways. The girl's horizons widen, and the boy's emotional endurance becomes strengthened. Instead of going back to his playboy ways, he actually makes a long distance relationship work. He is able to be patient for once, and for his character, that's a huge development.



His grandma is also a very interesting character in this area. She isn't portrayed as a simple villain. She is trying to do what's best for her grandson, and she is a victim of falling for her first impression. She is eventually won over, but not by a grand gesture. It took time, and she gave a condition that also lets the girl gain something, and eases her own qualms about the relationship. It is still pretty extreme, but it's suited to the character once again. It doesn't feel like a stance from the writers, but just a natural extension of the character.

Romantic authenticity: This show didn't have the weird alien "air-brushed" feeling that other shows have nowadays. Remember that delightfully disgusting Jjajangmyeon battle?!

If you have a weak stomach, just don't. Pretend it's just a picture.

There is awkwardness (A LOT OF IT OMG?), there is sex, there are potty mouths, brash characters, and you love it all in some way, because it feels sincere. Even when you're slinking at the end of your seat during the convertible scene. That's TOO LONG TO NOT PUT YOUR SEATBELT ON WHY ISN'T ANYONE PULLING THEM OVER?

All in all, I felt like the show was trying to say that everyone's different, and you must be authentic and true to yourself, but you do not use this as an excuse to never improve yourself. Everyone will have their own way of "being better", and will have their own conditions that they need to sustain their individuality while giving part of themselves to others. It's a freestyle dance, and you cannot expect people to line up in rows and do a line dance for the sake of making it simpler. There will be bumping involved, but there will always be space for who you really are.


I just wish they left space for her boyish style and short hair until the very end!!! But that's just me. That's her life journey, and I respect that.

Conscious Consuming of Creation

"Do or do not. There is no try."

All my life I imagined myself to be "a Creator".

I'd create crafts, songs, and stories. Whatever can be made by a human, I wanted to figure out how to make myself. I'd tinker with things, watch "How it's made" videos. I always wished that I could grow up to be a person that made things. I didn't have a clear idea about what specific thing, though. I sort of imagined I'd do many different things at once.

Now that I'm an adult (I'm 29 today!) I've let that slide willingly towards the sidelines. Graciously and consciously. In fact, it was just a few days ago when I actually decided. For too long now, it felt like the universe was pulling an unwilling me towards that decision, but a couple days ago, I sat down on the bed, demanded Beardy's attention, and declared it: "I'm going to start and chill about pressuring myself so much to do something on the side!"

 Since I started teaching, I feel myself pulled towards too many directions, wanting teaching to be the steady thing that will allow me to do "what I'm really about" (whatever that was!) during my free time. Well, that turned out to not be very easy when you're an amateur at the "steady thing". This "steady thing" now needs to be my focus, so that it would actually be steady, as I found that it's the one that gives me a feeling of purpose, and it does give me the opportunity to be very creative. I want to be good at this.

Like any naive young creative person, I suppose, (I hope! but really I was a lot more stubborn than my peers) I started out quite frenetic, unstructured, angsty, and untethered in my creative life. There was just too much to fix within myself. It had often felt like my life as an artist was the human equivalent of a plastic bag that had holes on it, filled with different colors of paint, and the color just had to burst out of it towards any direction. I had a lot inside, and sometimes the outcome was beautiful, but I was not in control.

Now I am deciding that as I try to be better as a teacher, I will sit down and enjoy Creation. Meaning, I want to sit down and consume what other Creators have made! When I was in college, my angsty nature somehow made it hard for me to open up and be vulnerable to other people's works. There will be times where a piece (art, music, a film, a building) would touch me, but now that I know myself better, I can read my past self actually building up a wall as soon at that happens. I felt too much like I had something to prove, when all I had to do was to sit down and be real. I couldn't be real. There was just too much to take, and not enough of me to take it.

Now I feel more whole as a person, I'm able to truly relax and be vulnerable in the presence of art. I am able to truly lose myself, let go of my ego, and just witness things, and I think that's important. I was wrong when I was young to think that you are either a creator or an audience. Oftentimes, it's being a good audience member that allows creators to create well. Consuming creation is the way to connect to humanity itself, to get truly inspired, and when needed, to create something that there is a void of. You cannot fill the gaps when you don't stare at the wall with the cracks.

So with this newfound mission, to be more human, by witnessing humanity's creation, I am going to start a series called.... *drumroll* WTF! What The Fuss.

I am going to review shows, books, movies, any sort of media, business, building, concept, any Creation that has captured people's fancy, and my awareness as an effect, to see What The Fuss is all about. I am not going to pretend to be a professional critic or anything, this is really just me writing about my experience of things, so I can literally review anything, for the sake of being more mindful of my experience of Life.

I am a human Being, I think this is what that is about. More than just creating, witnessing. Taking it all in. Living. In a state of peace, and no longer in the state of feverish longing. I will either do things, or not do things, and follow Yoda's advice. I want to worry less about what I am not doing, and just do it, or forget about it, until it is time to do it. We spend so much time worrying about doing. What about just being? :) Feeling! Sensing! Eating! Sleeping! I'm getting sidetracked again by my very humanly urges! Help me! aaaaaaaaa

Ok. I'm still here. So that's it for me for now. What's weird is that now that I've chilled about creating, I've been feeling more creative than usual! Proving the previous point I made. Ah well. Let's just see how it goes. Going with the flow now. And right now the flow tells me: "Time to end this post, Bea."

I'll see you next time! On the first WTF post! Soon, friends!

Starting Where You Are

There are many ways to do the right things. Many means to go about accomplishing a certain end. When we seek for help in accomplishing our goals, or in creating a more favorable situation for ourselves, we are faced with a million choices when it comes to  H O W  T O  G E T  T H E R E.

"There" usually being:

• better health
• better living situation
• a more fulfilling career path

Et cetera. There could be a thousand versions of even this list if we're being honest, but here let's just call them General Things to be Better at. That doesn't really work. How about Betterment Goals. I don't like how that sounds either. But this illustrates my point. Words can fail. 

The main focus of whatever journey you take on in getting yourself somewhere better in life, in whatever form "Being Better" would manifest in your imagination, should be 

W H E R E V E R  Y O U  A R E.

 R I G H T  H E R E

R I G H T  N O W.

And this is why many self-betterment guides would start with you listing your own answers to their questions. And yes, I am not here to discount you searching for those guides. In fact, depending on your personality, it might be better to look for more than one "guru" or whatever you want to call it, so that you can curate whatever resonates in your life in particular from many different sources, and make the roadmap you eventually follow your very own.

We like learning from others because we like information already processed and laid out for us to take in. This is easier than having to start from scratch, scrambling to find crumbs that will lead us to the bread, trying to find all the ingredients on our own. This is why we have grocery stores. I think I need to eat soon. I'm getting a little sidetracked.

Anyway, this is not a bad thing. This really does help. What I want to emphasize though, is that we should not be so naive and think that betterment ends in that learning. We take many things in. We make it our own. We share how we made it our own. Maybe more people will find it resonate better. They will take some of it in, just like how we took from others. Then they will make it their own.

Words do not contain the entirety of meaning. Other people can not provide the secrets to your success. Something has to come from you.

And yes, a lot of it relies on luck. But your luck improves when you improve your striving in finding these answers.

So, let me ask you a bunch of questions:

1. Outlook: Do you think you have a positive one? When you think about your day upon waking up in the morning, how do you feel? What causes anxiety in you? What causes joy? Do you notice yourself feeling one more often than the other? Why do you think so? Are you okay with that? (Like I wake up meh most mornings, but I'm cool with it. I think it's just how I am and it's fine) And if you're not, is there anything within your power that you can change?
2. The Good: What's already working out? This is important. What do you like that you don't really want to change in yourself, your living situation, your habits? You don't have to change everything. Maybe you don't even have to change very much. Honestly you don't even have to change at all. Let's be real. Your life your rules.
3. The Bad: But if there are things that aren't working out, maybe take some time to look at them. There are things that don't work out that are too uncomfortable to even acknowledge so we fail to realize that there's something there that we can actually control. But then there are things that we feel we have no power over. For those things, is it possible to tell someone? "Misery loves company" and this isn't just a sadistic urge that humans have for no reason. When we find others with the same problems, we are able to pick each other's brains about possible solutions. There's another one, "Two heads are better than one". Maybe there's something you're not seeing that someone's who's gone through the same thing knows about. That was a long painful sentence to read and I apologize.
4. The Ugly: Let me just talk about that word, Ugly. It has a bad rep. But I love it. I'm part of the niche crowd that uses it with a sense of endearment. Much of my hang-ups in life, I solved by changing my relationship with Ugly. More than my sense of self-worth ceasing to depend on my outward appearance, I see ugly as a sign of progress. Ugly is something that's on its way towards becoming. It's finding one's way. It's not incomplete, it's just in the process, and that's what life is. It's only complete when it ends. And So I Therefore Conclude: Ugliness and Beauty is like Life and Death. Polar opposites that are unalienable from each other. Just like.. well, poles. 

          So. In your life, what's being completed? What's in the middle of the process; something you started but haven't finished? Something you like but isn't "quite there yet"? And maybe, how do we look at it differently? As you being a Real Live Person, in the middle of figuring things out?

So there are questions for today. Maybe we ask them every now and then. This can be a model we use everyday when we meditate in the morning, or this could be just a one time thing. It's a dish I've made from ingredients I've taken from different sources that I have now served to you. Maybe you take something out from it, or maybe you just eat and run, and burn off all of the energy. But that's your process. Make it yours. As for me, I'm done with this one, and hoping to make more in the future.

Now, lunch.

State of Flow Through Sushi Go!

if you think these spreads are too lucky to be unstaged... you would be right.

Today, Beardy and I played Sushi Go!

It was the weekend, we felt like we deserved to do fun things after a tiring week, and since there were enough days between today and the next work day, I actually could relax into it, and my panicky "YOU DON'T DESERVE TO HAVE FUN" mode was completely off.

It was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed trying for a change, to do some of the shuffling and dealing of the cards, and adding of points. Something I always let Beardy do because he does it faster and more efficiently, and we often play with friends and not just the two of us, so I don't want to take other people's time. But today was all about just enjoying ourselves, and Beardy is like a very supportive father when it comes to me trying to do it on my own, no matter how embarassingly slow.

Afterwards, I had some very queer feels, which I shared with him: That was relaxing, but also exciting! ("Just like Japan!" I had to say, not only because of Sushi, but because this day we're also trying to sort out the itinerary for the trip we'll take there in May)

Relaxing and Exciting.. Two things that don't normally come together for me. I'm either relaxed and therefore kind of demotivated to do anything but lay around, or excited, and therefore agitated and leaving nice wads of hair all over the floor.

But I think that's what the ideal state of flow is supposed to feel like.

It's easy to know how one should be like, to know about a state of mind, or a state of heart, but to truly be able to be there, in that state of mind or state of heart is really the only way one can be familiarized with in in such a way that can make it easier to recognize and therefore capture, or inhabit more often.

And when it clicked, when I recognized it as it happened, I thought, could I try and inhabit this state when creating art? When writing songs, playing, singing, when writing creatively?

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to just write and create, without thinking about results, but just to create in order to improve, to go through the sensation of discomfort when something isn't panning out easily, when the words don't come, without letting the desire to correct myself absolutely engulf the whole experience?

So I thought of writing this, here, now. Hoping that I could inhabit all of the "This, Here, Now"'s of my life with more ease, more clarity, lightness, and me-ness. 

it's not about me. it's not about you.

in this production that is life, where we make scripts out of ideas and perform our humanity by sharing ourselves and our work, some of us will choose to be on camera, to be under the spotlight, to be the ones on the stage.

some will choose to stay backstage, behind the camera, working their magic from behind the shadows: their work doesn't have their faces on them, and we critique their work without making it personal.

but a lot more of us will choose to be part of the audience.

the audience plays a crucial part in any performance - we are the ones with enough distance from the productions to be able to objectively critique them. we are not operating on the survival mode level of "the show must go on" and are able to keep our wits about us. sometimes too much wit, that we forget to empathize with the performers in their heavy costumes under the hot spotlight.

we are the lucky ones able to just sit down and digest whatever's offered, and to place judgement. we don't feel the frantic energy behind the production that might make our opinions about inauthentic props and bad makeup feel very petty and unjust.

oftentimes, we forget that this is a privilege we receive by taking on this more passive role.

when you are onstage, people can hear you more, but you are also given fewer chances to be wrong. each failure, each misstep, can taint your name and even remove you from the stage, if it gets too bad.

we are all people, when stripped of our roles: we have preconceived notions, biases, unkind thoughts, misdirected emotions...

but when we only operate in the realm of ideas, and not so much in the realm of action, we are safe to think wrongly of things at first. our silence becomes a safety net for peoples' perception of us. we can try again, change ourselves, and choose to just show up when we're better. someday...

as i get older, i try harder to remember this, and to remind myself to look at everyone, whether they be actors in the spotlight, crew members behind the scaffolds, or vocal audience members, as parts of one whole. it is this one whole, this production, that needs to be critiqued. to be improved upon.

what is it to be human? what are we imparting to this world? where are we going?

i see no harm in criticizing points of view, in fact, it's crucial. but i find it important to remember that it's not about individual vendettas, that everyone comes from some place when forming their ideas about the world. it's all about trying to tip the scale, not writing someone off because they had a bad day, chose the wrong word once, or had a fuzzy brain day, like i'm having today as i write this.

(but of course, there will be those who will repeatedly resist any efforts people around them to put them on track, those who probably need some time off and take some time alone. i am not talking about those people. sometimes some people just need to SIT. DDOOWWWNN for a bit.)

i keep getting creative blocks whenever i get new ideas. i can never put anything forward because i fear being criticized in this way. i find the warm safety of my silence to be nice and familiar for little old low-impact me.

but i'm thinking that maybe if i am able to offer myself this same kindness, it wouldn't be so bad. i will just have to ignore the little nonconstructive audience member voices in my head, and accept that when you're ~in there~, you will be imperfect, you will make mistakes, but you will exercise the muscle of being out there, and little glimpses of what's right will eventually outshine the parts that are wrong, or awkward, or poorly done.

so, here's to me having to write sentences without capitalization because it ruins my flow and i'd rather write ugly than not write at all.

here's to me probably having a few typos or grammatical errors in here somewhere that i probably won't see until someone points it out because i don't want to risk not wanting to post this at all by reading back too many times (please do tell me if you find any! i'd appreciate it.)

here's to making mistakes on stage, in front, out loud, on camera, here's to exposing myself and to accepting that sometimes, audience members can forget to be kind, but that i don't have to be unkind to myself too.

here's to deciding to fill in one role fully instead of mentally splitting myself into all roles at all times, running the risk never getting anything done as a result.

here's to less of me, and more of what i want to bring forward.

here's to less of you, and more of our interaction and its effects.

here's to the production we are creating together.

may we be both grittier yet kinder somehow.