Amazed Daily

Hey there, this blog isn’t really active anymore!  Why don’t you check out my other blog https://cartoons-characters.tumblr.com/ I’ve been curating moments from animated film and television with no characters within the frame to capture the beauty of a world we often miss when we’re too busy following a story. I hope you enjoy!  Also try and take a second today to pause and appreciate one of these moments in real life too. A crack in a wall can be as beautiful as a view of the ocean if you let it xx

Thank you so much :) :) :)It’s such a strange and thrilling experience to have a stranger reach out for the sole purpose of saying lovely things. Unlike friends or family, you have no obligation to read my work or give feedback, so it really means a lot for you to take the time to absorb my thoughts and to share some of yours with me too. I hope you find ease in continuing to be the sort of person who is able to spread kindness to those you connect with. I don’t believe there to be a greater joy than shining upon someone and seeing them glow xx

3.125%. At 45 minutes a night on average, it can be estimated that I spent approximately 3.125% of 2016 writing on this blog everyday. Considering all of the other shit I had to fit into the other 96.875% of the time, sleeping, eating, shitting, fucking, going to university, going to work, doing chores, reading, mourning, playing video games, riding public transport, laying in the fetal position due to mental anguish, socialising, dancing at gigs, listening to music, daydreaming, staring absentmindedly into my fridge, being horrified by the reality tv show known as american politics, moving house, redecorating, gardening, gazing upon art, and a billion other things, I’m so proud that I managed to dedicate that precious 3.125% into appreciating and documenting the world as I perceived it. That’s why I started this blog. On the morning of the first of January 2016 I was crying in a car alone, hungover, unable to move. suffering from the strongest bout of existentialism I had ever faced. In that moment I decided that to keep going I had to make changes. No matter how small I am compared to the ever expanding nothingness, regardless of the fact I am a victim to the never ending flow of time dragging me and everything I’ve ever known and loved into the unknown, despite how meaningless this will all be once we’re all forgotten, I have a life and I need to live it. Suffering doesn’t prevent these problems, it merely steals happiness and invades sanity. So I tried to take my happiness back, and protect the sanity still intact. I forced my perspective of the world to change by writing about something amazing every single day. That’s 366 posts including this one. There were a few poems, a few raps, a few short stories, a few one liners, but mostly it was just abstract descriptions of particular incredible aspects of life. From live music to avocados to evolution to rugs to language, I’ve broken down and admired the building blocks of my everyday life. I have literally trained myself to become happier, and I’m fucking bipolar, so that’s not the easiest of tasks. All it took was 3.125%. A little number compared to the big 100, but considering that’s almost one thirtieth of my existence for the entirety of this planet’s circle around the sun, it is pretty significant. And what would I have spent that time doing anyway? Whatever it was, I doubt it was more beneficial than the reprogramming of my own brain.  Now somehow, this year is finished, and I have decided that I no longer need this blog. I may post occasionally when I’m so inspired I can’t help but record my thoughts, but I have no need to continue writing here everyday. The goal of this blog has been achieved after all. I have learnt to walk in the rain and actually feel it, I’ve learnt to lie in darkness and be calmed by it, I’ve learnt to love my sickness, and my body and my mind and art. I’ve learnt to live within my mortality, not live despite of it. I’ve managed to be amazed daily. 

Art is not simply the end result. There is such a joy to be found in observing the process of art being created and treating that as a piece of art in itself. Today for instance, I went and saw a friend’s band play live. I listened to them recreate their own art in front of me, the three of them using their instruments and voices together to create one coherent piece live. I wasn’t experiencing a finished product, as one would admire a painting in a gallery, instead it was as if I was watching a painter in action. As a matter of fact, I was also watching two painters in action, literally. The band enjoys incorporating different art forms into their performances, so two painters set up aisles onstage and began creating in response to the music. I was able to stand and listen to this sonic fusion blending in front of me while watching a physical piece of work reaching its final form stroke by stroke. While this beautiful chaos was occurring in front of me, I was dancing in response. I heard the music and my body acted accordingly, waving to notes, jarring to beats, head rolling, as if to physically move my brain to match my mental state. Just like the painters, I was creating art as a response to the music, which itself was being created in response to the band members’ personal experiences. Just as the painters’ actions are cemented through the finished product of their piece, my dancing lives on in the memory of every observer, even the band members themselves.  Art is more complex than I have viewed it in the past. The final product is most often credited as art, yet the process of creation is just as important, not to mention the moment of conception and inspiration occurring at the beginning of every creative adventure. For example, you are reading this now in its final form, yet I myself am consuming this art in real time as I write and spell each individual word. They pour out of somewhere in my mind, and are captured one by one through these keys and this screen light. While you experience the final clean form, I get to see the spelling mistakes and bad word choices and abandoned paragraphs. Not only that, but I get to experience the moment I realise I know what I’m going to write about. Sitting by my laptop, scouring through my memories of the day to find something amazing I have not yet written about. Then a little click occurs, a shift in my perception, a sharp, centred realisation that something I had taken for granted during my recent waking hours was truly worthy of analysis and appreciation. Today I was able to experience art in so many forms, through separate mediums and consciousnesses and stages, admiring others and responding to it, then admiring my response, and analysing it, then admiring my analysis. What a beautiful mess today has been, and what an incredible shift in perspective this has provided me with. I am so glad for my creation. 

December is a merry month of the year, whether you like it or not. The view that happiness is the only worthwhile emotion is pervasive throughout Western society as a whole, but it is most notable in the lead up to christmas. Expressing an opinion against a blatantly capitalist and christian celebration is regarded as inconsiderate, as if you are spoiling everyone’s fun for not wanting to support the status quo.  The thing is, if your version of a good time relies on pressuring everyone around you to participate without question, perhaps your celebration is more of a recruiting technique. I mean literally, historically.  But that’s not the point, well I mean it is sort of the point. See I should be able to share my opinion without be shunned because it isn’t inherently positive. I’m not a pessimist because I want to make other people feel worse, I just have genuine feelings and beliefs based on facts I’ve been exposed to, and those thoughts happen to be negative. I don’t agree with christmas, but not only am I bound by social expectations to participate in the celebrations, I also have to do it with a smile on my face. Why can’t I just not celebrate? Or why can’t I be a part of it without being merry? We live in a world full of people so scared of negativity that they live in lies to make themselves feel better. Self love isn’t just for those who are positive, we should be able to love ourselves for being unsatisfied with a broken system and for being unapologetically deterred by fucking christmas carols. Look, all I’m trying to say is that the world is neither good nor bad, it’s both, and it’s entirely subjective. Right now being negative might be viewed as a bad thing, but who is going to make important change in our community if not those who are capable of seeing when things are wrong? It is essential to be critical, and punishing and isolating others simply because they disagree with you slows down our ability to grow. We wouldn’t have indoors if we weren’t unsatisfied with the cold, we wouldn’t have invented light if we didn’t want to escape the dark, we wouldn’t wear clothes if we didn’t hate the cold. We are built to be unhappy and unsatisfied, it’s one of the reasons we’re so good at making things better.

Working as a nanny has really given me a little more perspective about what being a parent means. My experiences on the job have been intense, in both good and bad ways. For instance, when looking after the kids, my mind is never at peace. I’m not walking down the street admiring flowers or listening to music or letting my mind wander, I’m making sure these children don’t get run over. My thoughts are always partly being occupied by the awareness that those young lives are in my hands. It’s a lot of pressure, and it’s exhausting. I suddenly appreciate my parents for raising me so much more. I’m tired after a day of work, but then I get to go home, and sleep, and wake up to be the centre of my own life again. My parents on the other hand, they woke up every morning for twenty years still being the people responsible for my life. What a thing they have accomplished, and what a blessing I have received.  But that’s not all I’ve learnt about being a parent. It’s not just hard work, there is also an overwhelming wave of innocence you are exposed to when you spend so much time with children. The joy of sharing new thoughts with a young mind and seeing ideas grow. Hearing their perspectives and remembering what it’s like to think the way they do, to be so detached from the tragedies of the past and present, no fear for the future of the globe. It’s sobering to remember what being young was like, we’re all just people who were children long enough to look old, none of us know anything for sure.  I’ve finally found a form of work that I consider to be truly worthy of my time. Trying to teach these children the most important things I’ve learnt in the time I’ve been observing and analysing this Earth. Yet there is a chance that I’m learning more than they are. 

I love the idea of buildings being dedicated to particular items. We have libraries for literature, galleries for art, nurseries for plants, as well as stores for food of any kind, stores for furniture, music, video games, pottery and just about anything else you can think of.  On the other hand our houses function as a conglomeration of all of these differently categorised items. All of the items listed above can be found somewhere in my house, and each of them could be found inside a little building existing solely for the purpose of bringing together a collection of similar items and sharing them with the world.  If life were presented as a painting, it would barely be recognisable as any one thing, as the sheer quantity of different elements bleed into one another. Different objects for different purposes coming from different places all somehow having reached the same location to surround you at that very moment. It’s chaos. I think that’s why the idea of a specialist store is so satisfying. It’s simple. I would like to look at some books, so I go to the library, entering a space covered from wall to wall in the items I am curious about. The clarity of a collection, the oddity of order, being surrounding by so many of the same in so many variations, By placing so many similar items together, their differences are accentuated, walls of the same forms exhibiting their subtleties. 

I lost one of my earrings yesterday and to avoid my piercing closing up I tried on one of my partner’s pairs. They were a long green dangly pair of earrings, and when I first looked at myself in them I hated it. It was too feminine, and therefore felt wrong. But then after a little while I got used to it and started to like how it looked on me. The longer earrings actually work well with my long neck, and I realised I look more like Howl from the film Howl's Moving Castle, a character who has massively influenced my fashion sense for many years. What has become apparent is that my initial reaction was a trained response for how someone of my gender should act, whereas when I gave myself time, I was able to think about how I really felt. I find it ridiculous that the shape of an earring can even indicate what gender should wear it. In this society we assume that someone's sex matches their gender, and that people of one gender will naturally enjoy things the other won't. There really isn't that much reason to believe that to be the case, but regardless, why would my ownership of a penis somehow dictate my preference in earrings? What the fuck, seriously that's so bizarre when you break it down like that. Yet people act as though I am strange for wanting to be myself, rather than question the system that sets seemingly random rules in place to accentuate the rules of a restrictive gender binary. So Yeah I'm gonna wear the fuck outta these dangly earrings, and that's not all. I'm gonna rock my women's branded tshirt, and my women's branded jacket, and kimono, and pants, and I'm going to dance and cry and speak softly and live by being honest about what I want regardless of what I'm supposed to do. I love these baby steps as I discover who I am.

When we know the time we have with our loved ones is finite, it is understandable to desire the creation of mostly positive memories with them. But what happens when something important to you gets in the way of a potentially pleasant moment? Do we sacrifice the things that matter to us, ignore the things we strive to incorporate into our everyday lives simply to avoid confrontation? No, I think not. That would be living in delusion, denying reality for the sake of ease in our relationships. People are messy and complicated and passionate, and to bottle up our feelings is simply not an option. That does not justify a lack of empathy for those around you, it just means that not all experiences are positive and that doesn’t mean they’re not worthwhile. If I’m concerned about my loved ones I want to be able to talk to them about it, regardless of how hard that may be. Try and share happiness with those you love, but do not lose sight of who you are. What is right is not always what is easiest. Life is fleeting. I’m a mess. Merry Christmas I suppose. Never stop caring.

Fucking hell the zoo is such a trip. I went for the first time in many many years and I was able to appreciate it so much more now. I mean, I saw creatures from continents I have never set foot on, animals that I may never have seen in person if not for the existence of the zoo.  I saw birds, I saw mammals, and reptiles, and insects, and fish, and amphibians. Creatures with wings and feathers, fur and legs, scales and cold blood, and exoskeletons and antennas. I saw animals that live their lives in the ocean, the land, and the sky. Animals of different colours, different shapes, different patterns, different sizes, different diets, different homes, different fucking everything. Animals are so incredible and diverse, and as I looked at each I realised that they all came from something. There was one thing that all of these separate individual fascinating things came from. Now these life forms are existing in front of me, behaving in ways that occurs naturally to them which is ingrained in them because that is how their ancestors adapted to survive. It’s as if they lack free will because they are restricted by the traits of the species they were born into. And I’m the same. I’m an evolved animal reacting to stimuli in a way that I have been born into. I perceive my surroundings through my evolved eyes, and my movements are defined by my evolved limbs. The foundation of my action and though and overall existence is formed by the fact that I am human.  And I was able to have all of these thoughts about myself within the confines of my own mind, the evolved brain that I’m hanging out in. It’s a different kind of cage, and one that I feel very fortunate to be a part of for the time being. 

The difference between a seven year old mind and a ten year old mind is astounding. I just started a job as a nanny looking after two boys, and observing their behaviour and development has really opened to my mind to how people are formed.  I first noticed the significant gap between their ages when I watched them play Mario Maker. The ten year old worked towards making a clean level and experimented with different blocks and enemies. He stumbled upon the fact that the when the big Bowser does his jump attack, he breaks the floor he lands on if it is made of ice. I saw his mind ticking over as he realised that he could use this discovery to his advantaged. He positioned a big Bowser and layers of ice blocks above the finishing flag, so to finish the level the player must weave under the boss to trick it into opening up a path. It was creative, and interesting, and fun. He experimented and discovered and applied, creating something nuanced.  The seven year old didn’t display quite the same set of skills. He spawned maybe fifty big caterpillars with anger issues and handed the player an invincibility. It was chaos. He enjoyed creating levels in the same way a child enjoys scribbling pencils on a piece of paper. It seems the act of vomiting colourful chaos through a creative medium is incredibly satisfying, but doesn’t quite result in very compelling work.  The thing is, it doesn’t actually matter if either one of their levels were fun to play, or whether one was better than the other. What I find joyous is that a piece of art is engaging for children and encourages them to create too. I love that they are able to play a video game and use their brains to design an interactive experience for each other while they have fun. I’m grateful that I am able to observe this process and call it my job.

The concept of making appointments is really odd. Earlier today I called a new hairdresser to book in a time to get my hair cut, and it occurred to me how little I’ve thought about this practice. I spoke to a complete stranger and we agreed upon a time in the near future that we would meet to exchange currency for a service. A verbal agreement between strangers who have no idea how each other look, blindly trusting each other that they will not only meet in a specific location in space, but also a specific location in time. This to me seems to be an inherently ridiculous concept.  Moreover, I find our need to measure and divide and control time to be very telling of our nature. There is no way I can guarantee to the human that may become my hairdresser that I will arrive at their place of business at the allotted time, there are simply too many things that could get in the way. Perhaps I will wake up to find all of my hair has fallen out, or maybe I forget about my appointment. I could receive an important work opportunity, or maybe I just decide I like my hair this length after all. Perhaps the business is unable to open, or the sun doesn’t rise, or time comes to a halt. Yet we both decided that it seemed reasonable to decide that our meeting was set in stone, that we would refuse to make plans with anyone else in that time as our schedule was filled. We rely so much on times consistent flow that we dictate how our lives will run based upon it. I don’t blame us for that though, time seems to do a pretty good job staying consistent, ignoring its ability to slow down during boring lectures, or speed up while playing your favourite game. But regardless of the practicality of our division of time, breaking up our lives into months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds, the issue seems to lie in our obsession with control. Society needs organisation to run smoothly, and a well coordinated schedule is therefore essential. But I suppose what I’m asking is why did we end up making a society so reliant on these restraints? Why do I already know what days I will be at work next year? Why do I need to be aware of the concept of a next year? It’s just another day after all. But alas, I do know, and I do plan, and in doing so I take a part of my free will away. Crushing the future events of my life into a book, not taking into consideration how I will feel when it becomes the present. That is the issue, we are part of a society that functions in a way that does not consider how we function, and how we feel. It is made to be clean and efficient, and predictable. The oddest part of it all is, it was made by people who were just as messy and inefficient and unpredictable as I am. 

My partner watched me record some gifs on my laptop tonight, and commented on how amazing technology is. What I find interesting about this is she hasn’t expressed this sentiment about screenshots, or watching videos, or recording videos, it was specifically the act of recording a section of an already made video on my desktop that impressed her.  Now to me this seems to suggest that rather than the gif recorder itself being an outstanding piece of technology in comparison to the other examples I gave, it appears that what amazed her was progress, no matter how small. Seeing a gif being made is new to both of us, and I admit I too felt very futuristic when I first download the widget. But in a few months we will become used to it, and we will no longer feel like we live in the future. Once an item is in your present long enough, it simply becomes an accepted part of our present.  This is why humans so often appear ungrateful. We quickly adapt to changes around us, but this means things that once seemed mind-blowing become part of everyday routine. Technology is constantly developing in mostly tiny fractions because companies know that even with a huge leap, we’ll just accept it and the excitement will wear off. The ideal business model is to introduce small changes on a regular basis, let’s say oh I don’t know, maybe a new slightly different phone model every year. That way consumers are routinely being amazed by what is on the market, and the market receives more attention from the consumer. Everybody wins. Except the people throwing themselves out of factory windows that is. Well. The point is, we’re fickle creatures who care a little too much about new shit, but it really is a testament to our supercharged ability to adapt. We are able to learn new skills and approach everyday tasks in completely different ways when provided with the tools to do so. Soon these gifs will be old news, and something else will pop up and I will lose my mind thinking about how lucky I am to live through a period I can identify as the time I want to exist within. The future isn’t a set location, it is the steady progression of our society and the regular waves of amazement we are lucky enough to experience. 

Looking in front of me right now, I see a bookshelf, a record player, speakers, a few plants, my television, and a large painting. Whenever I have looked up for the past six months, that is what I’ve found. With a mostly stationary collection of belongings, my life’s background becomes more consistent, and as a result, my days bleed together. Looking at the past few months, it seems impossible to differentiate between events and dates.  One of the only signs of change, apart from a small amount of rearranging, is the growth of my plants. The bookshelf is the same size, as is the record players, the speakers, the television, and the painting. The plants however have spread. Working like a calendar, the plants growth is a reminder of the passage of time, a symbol for the progression of my life and the ageing of not only myself, but everything around me. It’s just so odd that the television ages with the plants and I, while staying so stationery. It’s just from a very different world than me and the plants. The television isn’t alive. I am. I’m glad I have the plants with me, as a reminder that I’m not made to be stationery. The point is I wasn’t made for anything at all, I’m just here to grow. 

So I saw a display home for the first time last night and boy was it bizarre. It's like a life sized doll house, or like an immersive catalogue experience. It was a whole street of risk free, personality free houses, each one covered with flags representing the relevant warring real estate clan. These are the future homes of real human beings, filled to the brim with fake belongings to signify what it might be like if you live there. Fake televisions, fake framed photos, faking memories used to sell a product. How did we get here? What compelled us to design fake shelters? It seems like it must go against who we are as animals. We're just ridiculous little creatures, all dressed up and playing games, feeling very important indeed. The display home stands strong as a symbol of our pretending, full to the brim but empty.

I was standing by the bonfire, talking with my friends, when I heard it. Another conversation, slightly out of reach, pulling me away from my circle. The words were irrelevant, their meaning meant nothing to me. Their sound functioned as a reminder to me that there were more conversations than the one I was a part of. Different exchanges between different individuals, with their own detailed histories and social dynamics all crammed within the confines of their individual exchanges. There are constant conversations happening all around the world at this very moment. In the seconds I press these buttons creating an image of these words, the most important conversations of people’s lives are happening. Blurted ‘I love you’s and hushed speculation of war, final goodbyes, and catching a child’s first ever words. These moments are occurring right now. My life continues, one extended interaction with new and recurring characters blending into one another. It continues while I talk to myself, cementing these thoughts for the infinite psychic conversations I will have by sharing my story with anyone caring enough to read it. For a moment, my conversation was located beside that bonfire, and for a moment I heard that murmuring of another conversation. Two separate social bubbles bobbing so close to one another. All it would take is one word, and then 'pop’. Conversations merge, worlds collide, combinations created in constant interaction, but no. I stood nodding politely to my friends as my mind exploded with future writings now told.