i don’t remember this

i was discussing with a friend the other day that i fear i’ve lost all my interests. i fear i have forgotten how to be me, how to obsess over things i like, how to spend my time in a productive way for myself. being productive means something different for everyone but i think most people would agree that it means spending your free time doing things you love and enjoy. whether that is listening to music, hanging out with friends, drawing, reading, watching movies, gaming, cooking, self-care, it is up to each individual.

but what about me? what are my interests? what has caught my attention in the past to the point that that is all i can think of for the entirety of the day? what comes to mind when i am doing something i don’t like, in order to distract and motivate myself to finish it? what do i long for after a day of work and classes?

i used to have many interests before my brain got consumed by the inevitable and unavoidable need to work. and first and foremost, before i got consumed by the evil device, my phone.

i spent years learning everything about the perks of being a wallflower. i can’t even count how many hours i have spent on just watching the movie, again and again. I have read the book countless times and i have watched every video analysis about it to ever exist. i created a whole exhibition after it. some pieces were directly connected to it, some a bit more about how it made me feel, what it made me think. i saw myself growing up through this film. it was like i was reading my own life story. i spent years longing for my perfect tunnel scene. i started journaling after it. i always crave that infinity feeling. i think this movie is what made me understand the importance of living and experiencing. That infinity feeling is something i feel like i have been searching for my entire life. Subconsciously, it is what gets me to my decisions, what got me to start travelling.

i love art. all forms of art. some more some less. some i like creating more than others. but to my core i am an artist. for some years of my life, when i was preparing a portfolio to apply to schools and all that, all i could think was art. from the moment i’d wake up to the moment i’d fall asleep, i kept coming up with ideas. i was having dreams of ideas. i had reached this ultimate flow state where everything was inspiration to me. i could see a piece of gum on the floor and that would give me insane ideas of things to make, or how to develop some prior idea. at first this was great. i kept this little notebook with me everywhere i went and i kept sketching things down, or writing words, texts, anything that could explain my train of thought. i have so many notes in my notes app, all random ideas that would pop in my head after seeing a school bus falling into a pit, or two parents lifting their kid in the air, or cigarette butts on the ground, or after a discussion with some boring man at a bar. After a certain point, this constant and unstoppable creativity started to feel tiring. during my last year of school i was at my most creative state of my life, and i fell into madness. i couldn’t stop my thoughts, my ideas. this constant system of generating ideas non-stop, of course led to an artist’s block. after my months of absolute insanity and madness, i had to switch off my brain entirely to get back to normal. during that time though i learnt more than i ever have at any other point in my life. i was getting constantly influenced and i kept consuming media at all times. i became obsessive with creating art, but also just the idea of it. art consumed me. after some point i stopped feeling like a person. i just felt like a mechanism for art to pass through me. it kind of felt like what i imagine people experience when they think god is talking to them. art was talking to me. fine art was telling me to destroy my pieces, burn everything, create bigger, more complex pieces. oh yeah i forgot to mention, i love art destruction. i love burning canvases, objects, anything, i even burnt myself for pieces i have made. fire is the ultimate medium to me. nothing can compare to it, nothing can evoke the feelings i want to evoke in a better way. fire is power, rage, vulnerability, uncertainty. fire is art.