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14/9/26

The last few days have been filled to the brim with activity, both internally and exterally imposed, and today I found myself feeling utterly wiped. I dislike the limits my body imposes upon me. I have so many things I want to do, but my feeble brain is begging for rest.

I want to work on my comics and stories. I want to keep bashing my head against Godot. I want to work on this website. I want to grate my brain against languages. I haven't drawn anything that's not storyboarding related in ages. It feels like my days always end before I feel ready! It's been fun doing all kinds of things, but if I want to keep going, I should probably rest when my brain starts feeling like a wet sack of flour. I feel impatient.

It's weird to think how I used to be more apathetic than this. I think back then I had a lot of strange, latent anxiety floating around that made everything feel a little bit frozen, constrained and disconnected. Now that I feel better, it's like I'm trying to make up for all the time I lost wandering in the void. I'm genuinely enjoying life these days, but it looks like my body can't keep up with my spirit.


12/9/26

The previous layout delighted me for roughly one day before I started missing my beloved monochrome. I can probably never break out of this. I remember trying to find a neat color scheme when I first set out to create my site, but I never found anything I didn't start hating after two seconds. So, the monochrome is back but at least I renovated my site's outlook a bit and now that I learned me and colors just don't get along, I'm leaning even harder on the b/w theme. I made some assets and I kind of like how the sidebar looks right now. It's a little messy, but it's not as much of an eyesore as it would be with colours I think. I'm not sure how well the whole thing being floated to the right works, though. I'll let it sit there for now and see if it stops feeling weird or not. I think the issue is not only default reading direction clashing with the main section sitting on the right side of the screen, but the fact that the sidebar is literally in the center of the screen and hogs more attention than it probably should. I could try and see how it feels if I put the sidebar to the right instead... but I'm not touching that one today.

To do:
* Footer
* Put sidebar to the right side of the main section
* Figure out how the fuck you want the gallery section to work
* Above, but for OC section.


2/9/26 || Romanticism

I've been thinking about my terrible sense for romanticism. I keep bashing my head against the wall in my attempt to even understand what the word romantic really means. It's a whole world I have no window to. I only hear tales of it from the people around me.

Well, the wall gave in. I think I found the missing piece. I have poor access to the sense that allows me to see things as special, and this doesn't only explain my lack of relationships but also a myriad of little roadblocks my life is riddled with all the way down to why creativity doesn't quite have the same feeling to it as it did in my youth.

From what I've gathered, romantic perception essentially highlights various intricacies of an object, makes them more salient and saturates the object with meaning. The object pops out from the informational noise as ultra-meaningful, as The One. This ability isn't reserved for just people, but ideas as well. If you can't fall in love with an idea even a little bit, you can't quite see it in full. Sure, you can still start working without your heart fully in it. I certainly do, but I notice a certain fogginess around my ideas. I do my best to manually clarify them by scribbling out mental images and writing out whatever comes in my mind, but I don't think it's possible to truly see the idea in full, with all its details and meaning without the light of the romantic spark.

I don't know if it's just me, or if being special is overall a pretty difficult concept for one to hold in their hands. Like, if I sit here and try to conjure up the idea I'm somehow special, I quickly get dragged down by the voices in my head scolding me for being conceited and delusional. You're not special is etched into my subconscious as a hard rule. In a way it makes life easier. You keep your head down and your life just kind of... rolls at its own pace without huge ups and downs. However, what's made to apply to us doesn't stay on us. These subconscious rules get reflected on the world around, and applied on it just as it was applied on us. Nothing stands out. No person stands out. Even the most eventful stories feel like nothing really happened in it. Your stream of thought is just a flowing mass of muted colors.

I was never a romantic person in the traditional sense, but I do remember certain design details and story themes hitting me in a magical way. I could linger on them, and if I had to explain what makes those things so special, the most intellectually honest explanation I could muster would be a strange, monosyllabic noise. These things are beyond logical explanation, and I think that makes them vulnerable in a world that values rationality. If you can't logically justify the value you see in something, then the world is happy to invalidate its value in front of your eyes until what filled you with life just a second ago is now frivolous and stupid.

TLDR: Nurturing that sense of romanticism back to life seems like a great thing to do to improve my overall quality of life.


20/6/26

I simply feel like rambling about site-related stuff today.

I did not anticipate it, but I realized how now this page somehow feels more like it's mine. I didn't realize just how much I have held myself back from expressing myself. I've been comfortable rambling about whatever thoughts have been floating around my skull and posting comics with a similar motif, but I haven't dared to bring any of my projects to the forefront. I didn't realize until today how much that choice has taken away from the sense of this page being genuinely for me and the things I hold dear.

I'm planning on giving some sections on this site a makeover, but I'm still on the fence on how to divide the content. I don't want to have a million links on the sidebar, nor do I want the sections to be filled to the brim with miscellaneous nonsense like the gallery is at risk of. What do I want to host on this site in the first place? What's my overall intention? I feel like I quickly spiral to such questions.

I like it when things are neat, trimmed and simple. I doubt I ever lose my aim to keep my site so, but it comes with bit of a challenge with how to divide content, and if certain type of content should just be cast aside as too unnecessary to include. For instance, I liked the idea of an art journal so I included it, but I've already got this diary section. Sometimes I feel silly for having essentially two diaries on this site. I could fine tune the art journal to include stuff that has more to do with projects and my thoughts regarding them, but I don't know. The limitation feels too artificial. If I can inject it somewhere in a way that doesn't feel obsolete, I'll let it exist.

An old version of this site was complete with the usual indie web stuff: Stamps, blinkies and buttons. I even made a bunch of them myself and shared them. Then I started feeling like they were a bit... unnecessary? They're fun for sure, but they felt so... added on, if you know what I mean? I've still got a few on my index page, but each time I see them I feel somehow off about them. I will remove them.

I started building a hoard section to include stamps, buttons and links on this site but I might need to save that slot for something else if I'm going to relocate stuff from the gallery. Ideally I wanted to keep everything creative in the gallery section, but the sidebar there is close to getting very confusing. I might want to get the comics out of there and have a separate section for them. Perhaps in that yet-to-be-done section I could host a comic journal, if I really am deadset on having a second diary. I don't know what the hell I'm going to do with my OC section so its location would make sense. My brain feels like an expired can of peas.


19/6/26

Perhaps this is a pointless entry I'll just delete later. I'm currently very tired, and I suppose I'm hoping my brain would come online if my fingers tapped against the keyboard briskly enough.

I started building a new section for this site. Perhaps I'm finally finding the courage to talk about OCs on the website I made for... whatever I care about. It's silly how I originally built this so I could have a space in which I can be cringe and free, and yet I lack the inner freedom to follow through. In a way, when push comes to a shove, I don't know why would I talk about them. I guess the same question can be asked about making and posting art. Why say anything in the first place? What's the point of that? What's the point of stepping out and saying hi to anyone?

I guess it all boils down to connection. A lot of my art is from me trying to figure out the shape of the current formless blob sitting in the middle of my mind. Once I figure it out, I'm happy and that day feels more meaningful. Sometimes I get the urge to share my discovery but more often than not, it's an urge I don't follow through. I don't know if I am vary, if I'm shy or just if I'm just plain lazy. In a way, I don't anticipate being met.

Perhaps I should stop thinking about that, and start treating this site as the creative project it is. I'll do with it whatever I please. I'll include the things I want, because they're significant to me. Perhaps doing so is a step in figuring out the blob currently on my mind, and whether or not to share it is not something to concern myself with.


15/6/26 || Limitlessness

I've been contemplating on perceived limits and limitlessness. I do believe in physical limits. I cannot lift a mountain nor can I run at the speed of light, but this is different from the topic of perceived limits. Perceived limits are limits made real from our belief of them. If our mind states with absolute certainty: "No, I cannot", the body will follow, and in the end it was the statement and our agreement to it that created the limit. This is the type of limit I explore in this entry.

If we identify with the body, we adopt the limitations of the body. If we identify with the ego, we adopt the limitations of the ego. With each identification we are given a shape, and at the extremes of these shapes we perceive our limits to be. We are nearing one when we feel the contraction inside that warns us from going any further. It's us entering an area where we feel at risk of losing our footing. Some limits are worth respecting, but some merely make us smaller than we actually are.

Limits gain their validity from fear. It's ultimately fear that convinces us of the validity of a limit. If I go beyond this, there's no quarantee of what will come of me. If I go beyond this, I will not be protected. Within these limits, I am safe and my circumstances are predictable. It's the absence of fear that gives validity to this statement as well. Is fear and absence of fear true assessment of reality? I don't think so. It's a good guideline, but it's not infallible. In a life where you feel safe, you could face danger. In unknown circumstances you could be safer than in the known even though your immediate subjective assessment wouldn't match that.

Our beliefs and the limits they impose on us dictate much of our experiential reality. For example, in just a blink we can separate ourselves from our peace of mind by the complex net of interconnected beliefs other people's reactions trigger in us. The other is dissatisfied with me, therefore I am bad. Because I am bad, I am unworthy of connection. Because I am unworthy of connection, I am now separate from the web of all that is good. Their dissatisfaction translates into a sense of rejection in me via a web of little beliefs that link to each other, and the fear that then arises is what gives it a feeling of reality. It's an illusion, but it talks so loud it's hard to see it for what it is.

It all sounds like a simple thought exercise with no other value than that of entertainment, but it does have implications in everyday life and the little decisions we make. When I tap into this, I feel less blocked from what I deep down want to make or who I want to become. The felt sense of "this is an avenue that is barred from me" lifts a little, and my field of possibilities expands. It's all perceptual, but it has an immense influence on me and how I feel about being in the world. Not all paths need to be forged with sweat off your brow. It may just be that I am the one creating friction with my beliefs, and the path has always been there, open and waiting to be walked.


28/4/26

Hi everyone!

I've been thinking about doubt lately, and how it sneaks into my life in ways I don't notice.

Doubt is the energy that fogs my mind and scatters its contents. It makes it hard to pick and choose a direction to commit to, and when you do, it makes you ask yourself repeatedly will this hold if I keep walking? The endeavor doesn't really matter. Determined doubt finds a way to undermine regardless of what it has in front of it. Your own thoughts? Your feelings? Ideas? Let doubt do what it does best and soon you can't even identify what you are looking at anymore. It kills recognition. It makes you a stranger to yourself.

I had a strange moment where all my doubt was suddenly dispelled, and it happened by death of hope. Sometimes hope is feeding things that should not be kept alive, things that lead to stagnation rather than growth. There's a strange similarity in hope and doubt, and I think it's that they both make it hard to see and accept what is real. They both keep you in a state of ambivalence where committing to a stance becomes a challenge. They both nudge you off your center, making you feel disconnected from yourself and way too attached to what's going on outside you. Both render what is either insufficient or untrustworthy.


17/2/26

I'm noticing my memory losing hold of concepts that have helped me lately, so I figured I might as well jot down an entry on them.

Greed. I've noticed a lot of my restlessness and inability to focus essentially stems from greed. What I have in front of me is not enough, I need more. I need something different. Something that hits the spot. It's not that the book in front of me does not have content that could nourish me. My mind is simply not in a state where it could notice and receive them. To be aware of greed instilling vague urgency and speeding up mental processes into incoherent chaos, that is helpful for me. Slowing down the mind is essential to genuine enjoyment of what's present.

Stream of consciousness. I nearly forgot about this which prompted me to go and write this entry. I think I instinctively validate and invalidate a lot of my mental content, and at times it gives rise to this generalized stifled, stuffy feeling. With this hesitancy to embrace mental contents, entering the stream of consciousness is a great challenge and a lesson at acceptance. Being able to bring out whatever brews within, no matter how ridiculous and nonsensical, requires complete surrender of defensive judgement of one's self. It's scary, but if you can do it, it feels incredibly liberating. It's essentially spitting in the face of the inner critic so thoroughly and completely that it's rendered impotent, and forced into a shamefaced retreat.

Treating creativity as a process that is rooted somewhere that is not the self. Wow, that was a mouthful. I still struggle expressing this idea coherently and succinctly, but I feel this entry wouldn't be complete without this included in some way. It's absolutely essential to my well-being.
Sense of self is indispensable tool for navigating the world and orienting ourselves in it. To move from A to B requires you to somehow comprehend your being in A, which lays the groundwork for understanding that B is not here, because you are in A and A is not B. So you wrangle yourself from A to B, and for this process to happen, it requires some understanding of your own existence in time and space in relationship to other objects. It's a great tool, but it comes with the baggage and illusion of being the sole agent of your world. For anything to happen, you must make it happen. If you can't make it happen, you are somehow faulty, and you must fix this fault in order to be someone who can make it happen. You wrangle yourself from A to B. That mentality makes everything so... serious. Heavy. Burdensome. Controlled. Narrowing. Not very conducive to light, creative play. The good news are, it doesn't have to be like that. You can totally engage in creativity in a way that's less about being a toiling laborer and more about being a listening, receptive ear for stories someone else's telling you inside your mind, images someone else's painting inside your mind's eye. It's an experience far more enjoyable than the forced generation of ideas and controlled implementation of them while feeling like it's all on you to make it right. I don't know how the raw material can come out still breathing when put through a wringer like that. When you treat the creative content as something that's rooted not in you but somewhere else, things just... It's just better. I like it better. I like living life in such a way where the self is not highlighted to the point it feels like a bag of stones I've got to carry around and worry about.


31/1/2026

Happy belated new year! It seems it's been a while since I've written a journal entry.

I've been musing on greed lately, and how it manifests in my own life. It rears its little head there and there, compelling me with the idea of more. Inexplicably what already is, ceases to be enough. Greed often gives this mental image of a selfish and dishonest character, but I believe greed can also make us work harder and expect more from ourselves without any shadiness present.

Honestly, to me ambition is just greed with better manners and a fancier suit. Going right ahead and bluntly calling it greed just feels clearer. There's bit of a halo effect around the word ambition.

I feel like the majority of human development has been due to greed pushing us towards something more. Left unchecked, it fosters persistent dissatisfaction and sense of restlessness. A compulsion to do more, get more, be more efficient, faster. More, more, more. Gotta be anywhere but here.
In its most benign form it can be a great aid to get us moving, but even at its best its side-effects have a bad impact on our subjective sense of contentment and our ability to stay present. There's goodness right here, right in this moment, but a restless mind can't slow down to appreciate them.


14/12/2025

Ah. Do I really need to take life so seriously? Do I really need to understand it before I can live it? Even if I did one day understand it "enough", would living be worth it anymore, when at that point there's not much left what would be me? I sometimes wonder if learning is just rejecting yourself and what's inside you in order to take in something right and correct. My mind is full of voices that keep me worrying about what's the right way to go about something. When I don't know, or I don't trust the answers I have inside myself, I look it up. In doing so, I let others determine what's right for me.

I don't think I really live a life where I have to be so diligent about what's the right way. I just want to live a peaceful life, explore, and draw. I don't think any of that warrants being so worried about the right way. I don't have to justify the existence of my drawing by doing them right. I often end up disliking them when they're done that way, anyway. When I'm really uncertain about my art, I feel compelled to practise, look up proportions and color theory until there's not much that's spontaneously arisen from me. Everything is based on rules rather than what'alive. At the end of the day, I don't care about what's considered good, I care about what's alive. Why is it that good often feels dead?

What is good, anyway? What's correct? I suppose the common consensus determines that. What we're taught at schools. What's the current trend in society. What's reiterated the most. I think to be trapped in all that is making the alive type of creativity difficult. Society, the external world, other people, feed us a rough mental image of what's right, and the more we adopt it as our own, the more we are encased within a rigid shell that blocks spontaneous aliveness.

I wonder if AI art is essentially the rough average of what people as a whole consider good. If a person would've drawn it, I think many people would say that the work is good. To be honest, I do find them impressive looking, but I can't value them. They're plagued by the issue of goodness leading to deadness. It's just a moment of "Oh wow", but you can't sense anything underneath that would draw you further in.

I dunno where I'm going with this, honestly. Maybe nowhere. I just feel like today is a good day to not take life so seriously.


11/12/2025 || Procrastination

I want to understand why I procrastinate on projects that are personally important to me. In a way, it's easier to take care of external obligations. I don't have to care about any of it. I just have to do it. However, my projects I have to show up emotionally for. That's kind of their point, and that's what makes it so hard! Yet, I love them. They're immensely important for me, and something about that makes me reflexively procrastinate. Yet, on days during which I work on them, I'm happier than on the days I don't. And no, it's not just correlation. Assuming I do have the time and space for it, I can force myself into the groove and that has the effect of improving my day. I'm very confused!

It's not a constant issue, though. It's just on some days my brain goes "Whoa there partner, are you sure we're ready to go there?" It's just weird. Maybe I don't trust I won't be somehow interrupted the moment I finally manage to get the ball rolling. Maybe there's just so much in there that it carries a charge the rest of my drab life doesn't, and it makes it an anomaly from what my brain is used to. There's honestly not much I care about in my day to day life, and it's become kind of my baseline. So when there's this little stupid silly thing I do care about, it feels foreign... and kind of fragile, to be honest. If I somehow lose this, my life becomes pointless, apathetic drifting from one gray day to another. If I approach it from the wrong angle or at the wrong time or when the planets are aligned in a particular way, will I shatter it?

That's probably the gist of it. It's meaningful, rare and fragile. I don't want to mess up, and I don't want to lose it. But I don't want to be so careful with it I don't ever work on it, either.

Maybe it's time to remind myself all these fears stem from some kind of story, one that's fueled more by my beliefs than reality.


9/12/2025 || Stories We Tell Ourselves

You know, sometimes it's good to remember that even though emotions are a great source of information, sometimes they're reaction to things that are not true. A lot of my anxiety revolves around belief I have an obligation to extend myself beyond what is good for me. That core belief i/s wrapped in narratives that support it, and narratives that push back. Either way, I end up entangled in these stories, and the anxiety and resentment they rouse in me then further fuel the unhealthy stories. It's a terrible waste of time and energy.

Feelings don't dictate reality. Even if something comes with strong emotion, like my sense of obligation and anxiety, it does not make that thing true, you know? I react to it as if it is true, but that reaction isn't proof of the belief's validity. Negative emotions give things great sense of urgency which can make us blind to the possibility that what we're dealing with is not based on anything real.

So, even when I don't feel like this is true, I do not have an obligation to expectations and demands. I am allowed to stay within the boundaries of my own life, and dedicate time and attention on subjects that nourish what's inside those boundaries. To be a decent, average human being is okay. It's enough. It's okay to just mind your own business and go about your life. Our lives are our birthright, and we don't have to make them into anything that's there to serve someone else. They're our private property, not something just about anyone is entitled to cut out a piece for themselves.

Feelings are a great lead to our beliefs, but not all beliefs are rooted in reality. It's good to pause and reflect what we're allowing to dictate our lives.


6/12/25 || Hurdles

I got a good amount of personal work done today, and I want to talk about that. Or rather, I want to talk about the ever-present hurdle sitting before me and starting.

I'm pretty sure it's a common issue. You have something you want to do, something you perhaps would even enjoy to do, but the moment you actually consider doing it, it grows into a task so imposing you no longer want to do it. My options then are either to power through or procrastinate, but there's no way for me to actually enjoy the task anymore. It simply becomes this burden I want to eliminate so it won't weigh on me anymore.

I'm not sure what happened today exactly to allow it, but I guess I found a middle way. In a way, I leaned towards powering through, but I also normalized the hurdle. I think technology has given people unrealistic expecations on how much effort is normal. Services try to make things as easy for us as humanly possible so we would keep on using them. They seek to smooth out all work on your part, and they go even as far as to save you the effort of choosing. So, I don't know. I let myself be aware of the hurdle and accepted its presence, but I kept making the decision to bring my focus back on the work. Yes, it was miserable. Yes, you had to make several choices during short amount of time to stay on the task. And guess what? Before long I got the ball rolling. When the ball gets rolling, it gets easier to keep going and the longer you keep going, the more the work becomes a gravity point your mind revolves around.

It made me think back on the times when I was a child, and obsessing over a single thing wasn't hard for me. I could keep my focus on things that mattered to me, no problem. I could get on a task and stay on it. What changed? I'm pretty sure the world around me. I remember things taking a turn for the worse when smartphones became a thing. It was never hard for me to keep my attention off my cellphone, but smartphones with their internet access ended up being my forbidden fruit, and upon my bite on it God banished my attention span. I think around that time things were being made significantly easier and easier, either to accomodate diminishing capacity for sustained effort or exacerbate it further in order to capitalize on it.

I don't know man. I don't know how the world works, but today I had a moment that sent me down the memory lane, and I came back with few half-baked theories. I enjoy having my days revolving around a topic of my choice, but it seems I don't trust my ability to achieve that. I assume the modern world has bombed my attention span and it is forever incapable of doing what I want it to do. This has led me to take the hurdle as something abnormally insurmountable, when it might as well be a companion that'll follow you for some time before it goes home. You just have to walk long enough.


22/11/2025 || What I Learned From Drawing a Comic Journal

Comics have always enjoyed a special place in my heart. I even drew some until perfectionism and insecurity finally put a stop to it, and drawing anything at all turned into a challenge.

This year at the end of the summer I decided to give comic journal a try. I bought a notebook and unearthed my neglected traditional art tools, and just went for it. I went against the grueling awareness of how I do not have an intuitive grasp on panel arrangement and how I'm useless at leading the flow down along the page. I had so little faith that for the first couple of entries I didn't even truly try. The bar was set to hell. As long as I filled the page, it's a mission complete.

Then I dared to give it a little more effort. I started using a ruler, and I spared the panel economy a little bit more thought. I did my best to go from having the page divided into three rows to four rows, a detail that had always irked me in my page layouts. I tried various color palettes, from full to limited. I drew entries consistently, and it helped me get over psychological hurdles that had grown between me and comics. It helped me improve technical skills enough that an empty page no longer paralyzes me as much as it used to. However, what it taught me above all is how giving yourself and your day-to-day life so much attention makes you feel incredibly dull inside.

I stopped drawing in my journal about a month ago. I grew bored of living in that small, closed loop and expanded my focus on the projects I actually wanted to give my attention to. The projects I was too insecure to properly tackle due to a severely lacking skillset. The comic journal faded into oblivion, until yesterday I had a spontaneous urge to draw an entry. It didn't require imagination, just recognizing something about my day I could compress into a page long comic. It'd be done in a jiffy, so let's go. I opened a fresh page and - bam. Dullness ate my thoughts and dissolved them into useless sludge. In that moment I remembered why I hadn't drawn in it for so long in the first place. The closed, cramped loop of self focus suffocates something important inside me, something that makes creativity so nourishing. I begrudgingly finished the sketch and chucked the journal aside as if it hid within it a void that could swallow my soul.

The topic of self focus and how it relates to creative flow dwelled on my mind since then, which is why I'm writing this entry in the first place. It seems that if the self is too active in any way, it blocks the subtle attitude of listening and noticing. If you direct excessive attention inwards, it will be stimulating for the self and the self will be so active it will hog your attention even more. This creates the suffocatingly small loop that leads to the dull feelings. Still, there is a time and place for attending to the self. If there's some kind of block, some kind of issue that tugs at your attention constantly, I believe it's worth checking out properly. Attention to the self shouldn't be a taboo. That's just a recipe for a new set of issues. I digress...

It feels ironic to write a journal entry about how I grew tired of drawing journal entries. I'm not going to even try to excuse it. This is the kind of rumination that risks my loop closing in on me and me only, blocking me from the creative flow I really want to submerge into. I just hope the core message has enough value to outweigh the risks related to flirting with self focus. I want to leave myself some kind of reminder that self-focused loop of enshrining events in my own life in ink gets old really fast, and creativity is much more fun when it's a communion between me and something else. Even if that something else is a figment of my imagination. Especially if that something else is a figment of my imagination.

I'm not ditching the journal completely. A day may come I still draw in it, but right now the time has come for it to step aside.


18/11/2025
At times I look at the gallery section of my site and consider adding more works in there, but when I browse my folders, I don't find any I'd feel like putting on display. I suppose it's silly to have the section when I barely use it. I do have the intention to. I just need to create the work I want to show.

I currently have... three projects in total. One of them is time sensitive, one of them is something of a promise I made to myself, and the last one is a passion project. Today I reached a major milestone on the third project, and I feel hopeful about it. I need to return back to the time sensitive one, and the second one? The second one technically can wait until the year changes.

Whenever I've had time, I've been reading comics. While I love them, it's sometimes hard to make mental space for engaging with them.