Feeling quite helpless. Because I know I am in shit, and I can't do anything about it.

In Pursuit of Happiness

I have a vague realization that most of the titles on this blog either read like a self help book or like the scribble of a super depressed and angry goth girl, but I think its something to do with how I have done the blog design. I am very satisfied with it. Another realization is that I actually prefer a white based layout of anything nowadays. It soothes my soul. I forget how many places I use the same element.
 I hope its not too late, but I just decided what my new years resolution is. I resolve to be happy. Simple enough right? Its actually like a careful design problem. But the solution is very simple.
 Do things that I actually want to do - The bullshit I do because I don't make an effort not to do it = Happiness
This means, I only meet people I want to. Hang out with them in ways which will make me happy. Not be with people because of compulsion of adjusting with friends expectations and needs. Actually fuck friends expectations and needs. I'm done compromising. I know damn well they are the one who should be compromising, and not me. I'm done letting them be the primadonnas.
 It also means, I do things that make me happy. If the concept of Happiness is a little to vague, I'll be just satisfied with doing things which engage my  mind positively, and brings me peace. I need mental peace. I need to be blank in the think box for a bit. And also try to live a healthier life. My operating question now is:
Do I really want to do this/go there?
The answers are usually a simple and resounding Yes or a No, if applied with the first equation. That should work.
I spend a lot of time talking to people and finding out things about them that I don't really want to know. So when I genuinely talk to people I want to, the satisfaction is more surprising. I just talked to a friend in Bangalore and her new job, and also my other friend who is working with her. Usually its people calling me up. But this was a case where I  called instead. And I asked interested questions about her life, and she answered me, and there was no barrier. It was just me asking about life and she answering. It was wonderful. Its so important for me to be able to talk to people who are interested in things I am, and does what I do. And that it is a friend and not a work place colleague is more of a precious gift. Somewhere down the line a few unlikely girls whom I met in a different city have become more close to me than people who call themselves my closest friends. I don't regret changes, at least not loudly. But today's conversation just enforced a hard and fast resolution to be made, and kept rigorously.
We creative-types are wont to descend into insanity, otherwise.

Discovering Inspiration

Sometimes I think that I spend 99 per cent of my life feeling disillusioned or just questioning my true interest in art. This is more like an over all whining which grinds on at the back of my mind behind the heavy curtains of conscious thought.

But there are moments like these, too:

 http://english.bouletcorp.com/2011/03/18/subway/

Go through legions of these, and a stage by stage process takes place. First, I am awed. The sheer awesome power of art, especially something done by hand, knocks the breath out of me. That is the true miracle. Just the joy at looking at lines, and colour, and brush/pencil strokes, and finishes, well, it cannot be described. The genius of it is only to be felt. I admit that I don't find the renaissance stuff as awe inspiring nowadays as illustration done today, possibly because hand done illustration is once again such an oddity, and such a rare thing. 

The second thing that happens, is that I want to do something as cool. write /draw things. Be active. Be creative. I think, "I can do that!" but then, I realize I don't have the originality. Whatever I do, will be aping what I just looked at and loved. And that again knocks the wind out of me once again, but for an entirely different reason.

The third and last stage that follows is that I want to kill myself. For not possessing the genius of the brush strokes, or story telling, or just plain ideas! If I am, at this point, in Bangalore, I send whatever I am looking at to my partner in suicidal tendencies, S. Then we moan. About our uselessness. Our need to be Awesome. And our complete and utter failure at it. And how we just don't have IDEAS. And then get into worse conversation about how we can acquire style, but the genius of having an idea is the main thing, which cannot be. 

And then the circle is completed, and restarted.