Hi, this is 2025 Rhea. Of all the journals, from 2013 to 2024, I find 2019 Rhea very unrelatable. She’s making more money than me, prettier than me, and way sadder than me. What’s her deal? She doesn’t really do anything. Can discord even do psychological damage? Just go to class and eat and draw silly. Turn the screen off. Be single.
2/21/2019
Is my education a business venture? I enjoy learning. I waited impatiently for university to begin.
Yet, I find myself chronically bored, failing, and in a some state of depression or woe that I couldn't have meaningfully conceptualized in high school. I find myself without ambition. Today, I attend class only to fix my GPA, not to learn. But then, I think working hard for scholarships and family approval, not working hard for fun and self-fulfillment, is reality. Oops.
I hoped university would “inspire” me. I hoped university would “guide” me. This, I see, is really silly. I am one in 68,000 students. I am clinically insane to expect a professor, where I am one face among 450 others, to reach out and explain to me my individual skills and shortcomings. Why should my absence be noticed? I'm a super confused rat who didn't know she was already supposed racing. Dumb.
Why would I rather walk with no destination, or stare at wall, over attending a class I am paying for? I was lucky, very thankful, my aunt offered to take me out, we saw pop-icon Jordan Peterson. It was a happy day, I did feel refocused. I still withdrew from German, I still failed calculus. Peterson gave me something else to focus on. Is that a win?
He talked about the value of educational institutions in society, and their modern shortcomings. “Discipline is the precondition for freedom.” I have heard my aunt and my grandpa and West Point reference similar ideas, “oh how Protestant, Mr. Peterson.”
My passions, my talents, are impractical. After all, isn't art selfish? Who cares about a pretty train station if you don’t have a train? At night, in my head, I play at wanting to be Dali or Rembrandt, and then I wake up and I make sure to sneer at art majors. What could this institution even offer them? "Don't bother." I am so jealous. I am restless, but cannot risk being in my sketchbook. I’ll freak out with adolescent insecurity if you try to watch me draw.
I want to be a great artist. I want to be great writer. I want to learn another language. So, why not draw? Why not write? Why not practice? There's always something more productive I should be doing. There are walls that need stared at. There untaken steps to nowhere.
I changed my major from Industrial Engineering to Hospitality Management. I feel so much shame. "I couldn’t handle the math." I didn’t go to class, I didn’t do my homework—I didn’t have the discipline required. I was lazy. I am refusing to face the music. Hospitality must seem random. I think my family is confused.
I've gotten stuck sitting in my failure. I am not really sure what I can offer society. I always think about West Point, with weird fantasies of prescribed purpose in historic, beautiful, and structured institutions.
I chose hospitality because I don’t have the discipline to be a truly great artist, or the style. I don’t enjoy really enjoy "current" art, or I must know nothing about it. I don’t want to be on stage. I don't want to be eaten.
In hospitality, there's this sense of agency. To curate something immersive, exquisite, for others, feels powerful. Seeing the gears of a hotel, knowing how everything is managed, how everyone is coordinated, makes me feel like mega mind, like a dancer or actor. I like that customers are different, and sometimes tricky. I like the noun "team," maybe.
I’m sure I could find something more useful to study.
I want my grandchildren to see my art, my writing, and admire it. I want guests to remember their time fondly. I want to interact with as many people as I can in as many languages as possible.
I have to draw in the morning. I need to remember to read. What if I opened duolingo?
"That’s a lot of work."
"That’s overwhelming."
2/26/2019
Art makes me sick.
A combination of Jordan Peterson, D’Angelo Wallace, Marco Bucci, and, most importantly, self-reflection, have helped me untether myself, I hope, from the weight of undo pessimism.
When I say art I always seem to just mean drawing and painting. I believe most artists aren’t born gifted.
Some artists describe drawing all the time and it being their favorite past-time when they were a child, I can't remember that being me. I never thought too much about art as a subject. I can’t really remember what I got up to before I had an ipod touch.
Come 13 or 14, I found myself engrossed in the world of fanfiction writing, of role play, of creating characters. I wanted my characters drawn. I realized I could do it myself. The level of drawing that I wanted wouldn’t be so difficult to achieve. Drawing was just a cool tool at time.
As a process, drawing did not feel natural. The art I made was not good. But, I didn’t have high expectations, I didn’t think art should “feel natural",” so I wasn't bothered. I knew it would take time.
I approached “art” from a self-indulgent headspace, and “practice” as if I was in soccer camp. I knew what I wanted to produce, and I planned my route. I happened to make a good regimen. I watched online tutorials. My parents gave me book-money. I still like those books.
Creative writing became embarrassing, and 9th grade English class was demoralizing. I was physiologically nervous and buzzing until the, near daily, 45 minutes of hell ended. This is the one teacher grudge I really should let go, but really can’t seem to.
Having moved states, and lacking any established social groups, I consumed a lot more media online than I ever did in the past—Netflix, YouTube, Twitter, Discord, Music, Podcasts and etc. I also found a new fuel to keep drawing. Interacting with small celebrities is a wonderful and addictive feeling. The internet makes them feel so close. I’m sorry if I tweeted at you, it was probably inappropriate. I think Keemstar got the worst of me.
I would draw nonsense things to get the attention of people I liked, and eventually found myself in a community. Likes, even out of pity or politeness, felt earned and were motivating. I wanted to post art as much as I possibly could, and so I was operating on the idea of quantity over quality. There was never any point you could have called anything I made, “popular.” Small community feedback was really enough.
I was very bored in the rest of my art classes. The fundamentals we did cover were overly basic and felt like common sense, and the assignments often didn’t involve subjects or mediums I was interested in. The teachers would select an art movement, the teachers would ask us to do formal research on the most influential artists in the movement, we would receive formal demonstrations on a particular medium, and then we made our own work with that medium, based on the art movement. I probably should have tried to engage more, but I was also a teen and very addicted to twitter.
I really can't help but feel like I have strong, disagreeable taste. I found myself actively disliking much of the art I was studying. We get graded on critique, and I don't like to lie, but I know I absolutely can not be transparent with my opinions. With famous dead artists at least, I really don't understand why it seems faux pas to call the style bad. I think it should be obvious it’s about my modern taste and the price of product, not a value judgement of the artist themselves or the people who like what they see. I don't like lots of things I also think are high quality and should be priceless.
I hope this era to be marked by improvement, enjoyment, and acceptance of myself as a hobbyist. I believe I’m only a week into this "era."
I have free access to the information I need online. I have the ability to study independently.
Why do I practice art today? What is it I want to produce? I would like to show the world both what I see and how I feel when I listen to music. I have never made anything visual that makes me "feel" like sound.
I want my digital art to reflect the styles of oil and I want oil to learn from the digital.
Art really reminds me of language learning.
That's one of the saddest things! It reminds me of language learning!
The Disadvantage of Time!
Digital art is easy to produce. Digital art is harder to produce.
World Wide web of a visual library
text document
Clothing: old traditional striped string bikini; old patriotic kinda werid but still bikini bikini; yellow and black speedo
plaid string dress; black formal dress
black skirt; Maroon pattern blouse, white blouse , tank top blouses (white & blue); dress pants; white or pink button up; maroon white or long maroon librarian sweater things
nude weird lace bra; weird green bralette; white bra;
patterned underwear; nude underwear; light green panties in a boy short cut
kitten heels; nude heels; grey heels
thigh highs; black, yellow, teal opaque tights
5" red brush; 3.5" black brush; 2" old make up brush; old curling iron //but that is big; electric toothbrush; bobby pins; actual clamp things; socks or tape ? pillow/rolled up cloth
floor, bed or chair; sit up, face away from camera, crawling, etc
Cam Kirkham, Contrapoints, Jordan Peterson (March?)
I had an idea, that kind of just fell apart. I ended up leaving it unfinished. I’m rusty. I realized the sketches I was doing bore little resemblance to Cam, but especially emotionally.
First, Cam Kirkham.
I found him when looking for videos about Sunderland and instead fell down a Newcastle hole. Cam’s content is somewhere in the "English commentary scene." I find that he is far less repetitive and formulaic than typical, more popular, examples Willne or ImAllexx. There’s geography I’m surely not understanding.
There’s something extra human and uncanny in Kirkham’s behavior—I am convinced I've seen more than just a persona. I’m having a hard time articulating why I find him so interesting.
Kirkham recently released a video, quite an angsty one, called Alone. I would best describe this video as an earnest, naive, first attempt at cinematic poetry. He talks about depression.
My first time watching it through, I was not receptive. "Cringe." Immediately began trying to rework his words to fit my taste, not engaging at all with the message or feelings that inspired it. My only opinion being, “that line should have been reworked.” My next thoughts were something like, “Oh—He’s going to regret that in 3 years.” “He’s going to look back and cringe.”
A lot has changed between when I first gave it a watch and yesterday. I started drawing again. I wasn’t lacking in creativity, but just too frustrated with myself, and my lack of technical ability.
When did art become this almighty skill that I must master? Work after work, piece after piece, any progress is unnoticeable. Meanwhile, of course, people I admire seem to keep leveling up. The expectations I had for myself were far too high, I started to actively despise the process, but also my physical hands and the wiring of my brain. She's a failure at 18. She's a waste of space. She's jaded, judgmental.
Recently a Peterson video titled Higher Education and Our Cultural Inflection Point, where Peterson is interviewed by Stephen Blackwood, their attention turned to art. I hadn’t thought a lot about Peterson’s philosophy with regard to the arts. I went back and found some of the quotes that stood out to me, I won’t break down each quote, but I think you’ll get the idea:
“Whenever memory and presumption can replace direct perception, it will, because it’s simpler. You literally see what you expect to see. If what you see is dull, bland and pointless and uninspiring, then that’s you.”
“What the artist does when he or she re-represents that mundane reality, it's to remind you of what’s truly there and the potential behind it.”
“It’s the acting out of the idea, that in this time and space, there is something worth attending to for an infinite amount of time.”
“Aiming up is in the best interest of the world…”
“You should move up despite your suffering.”
“Life is infinitely particular.”
“Those particularities are our individual access to the transcendent.”
“A particularity is where the pen meets the paper.”
“There is infinite possibility in each moment of particularity.”
“The world will be a lesser place without that which you could reveal to it because of your particularity.”
“Discipline is the precondition for freedom – sacrifice of the present for the future.”
“Whatever creativity you have will have to be stifled will you pass through the key hole.”
“You have to sacrifice everything you could have been to be the one thing you aim to be.”
One of my biggest gripes I have with myself is that, in not studying art a university, I won't have the time to be great.
I don’t need to be a master painter. When I can, even if it’s small, I should try and improve my art, so when I have something I want to show, I have technical means to show it. Back to communication. If not for anyone else, for myself. I returned to art, but as a victim to the idea of technique. Which seems to poke at or remove the relief that art could offer the artist. Yes, I should practice, but I should also enjoy the skill, the catharsis. I should inject some of my particularities in my work, because, why not? What’s the point of all this? I could just die. Then what would be left? A lot of inconsequential studies. A very embarrassing collection.
Which brings me back to Cam Kirkham. His video was personal, vulnerable. He offered unfiltered particularities. Yet, I sat there was judgmental of how emotional it was. My gut instinct was that in sharing his life and thus himself, he was in some way going to end up regretful. What does that say about me and my work? I’m sure that to some extent, it was embarrassing and difficult to post—but its creation and reception were probably cathartic. I cling too closely to the “discipline” part of Peterson’s words, and completely ignore the purpose, the drive, for such discipline.
I’ve always been an areligious person. Adopting a worldview in which you, and humanity as a whole are meaningless and random, as he disgusts, can be rather demoralizing. It offers no clear to path to purpose and fulfillment. We get to assign our own meaning to things. What do I wish to become? What narrative can I assign to this otherwise meaningless overcast Tuesday morning?
There is something really grand in the idea that this Tuesday morning is entirely random—That there never will or ever can be another identical Tuesday morning. We’re here by chance, we’re not here long, so we should cherish the absurdity. "Some infinities are bigger than others-" "Please stop talking John Green."
The other night ContraPoints posted an interesting video titled Darkness, focused on edgy jokes.
“Art takes the standard, disappointments and humiliations of life and cooks them into something getting off the floor for. Comedy has the ability to twist our darkest fears into something that can produce pleasure.”
Natalie argues that comedy comes naturally from personal experience. She critiques Ricky Gervais’ trans jokes, because they are unfunny, because he's not familiar with the trans experience, his inexperience leading to ineffective comedy. Same goes with visual art I suspect. I can’t effectively visually represent things I’m unfamiliar with. I have no idea about the feelings of being an Australian. I couldn’t really ever paint a child from the perspective of a father.
5/14/19
While this book is, at best, uncomfortable to write in, in reviewing my dorm, I can't imagine finding a good place to plug in. I'll have to decide if I should hand write or type my reflections for the rest of the summer. I can write with this ballpoint pen faster and more comfortably than I can type, so this seems to be the winner.
Today was long. I think I must be experiencing some form of altitude sickness. I expected Lake Yellowstone to be much lower. To my sub-tropical dismay, I'm over seven thousand feet above sea level and the lake is somehow still frozen. It should be summer. Although I am chilly and everything is soggy and muddy, it was refreshing to see snow again.
This morning, the bus left around 7:30 am from Bozeman. We arrived at Gardner at around 9:00. The check-in process was long and unorganized. Eventually, we all got our uniforms and left to get the lunch at Mammoth's employee dining room. Lunch was surprisingly good. We left for Canyon in the afternoon, and I landed here, finally, at Lake, around 4:00. It's now 7:00. I'm exhausted from waiting. Made small talk with a few people during check in – but I doubt I'll see them again, they work elsewhere. I can’t drive. Today, most I met seemed to be headed to Canyon or Old Faithful. I don't have orientation until tomorrow morning – I've already forgotten where it is.
The dorms are actually very nice, but worse than UCF. I have yet to have a roommate. I had trouble getting bedding but it was eventually sorted. The room next door has the bathroom locked. I have yet to sort that out.
The drive from Mammoth to Lake was pretty. We got to see bison crossing the road. They had very young claves, only a few weeks old. It was a nice.
The bus itself was wonderful. It was clean, well maintained, and lovely. It had over two million miles on it and has been kept in the park since the early 70s. According to the driver, there is only two still in operation (they can't replace vintage parts) and this bus will no longer be in circulation next year. I feel incredibly lucky to have ridden to that neat of a bus. History makes me feel small. As a mentioned, Lake is still frozen. There's dirty, melting snow everywhere. The weather is drizzly. Everything is still pretty. Everything is breathtaking.
