Katy's Canvas: December 2013

Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Letter to my 30 year old self

as 2013 comes to a close, we are all thinking about the betterment of ourselves in the future. for some, this comes in the form of new year’s resolutions. as for me, I’ve decided to archive a letter to my 30 year old self that I wrote mid-exams (11/26) in my last year in university, in hopes for a more long-term resolution to take hold. enjoy-

Dear 30 Year Old Self,

Yes, this is your past self addressing you. While 8 years ago you were overwhelmed by a congestion of assignments, wondering if you’d ever finish your papers alive, I hope by now you’ve found a way to put your education to good use. Lol. Before we go any further, I just wanna ask- were all the hours spent over the articulation of new media convergence, relational aesthetics (Tomas Saraceno- where is he now? Did he ever get around to producing that social change his work promised?), and the semiotics of comic books worth it? I wonder how much different your life and your concerns are now. I hope you haven’t forgotten your guiding light, your belief that all worries are fleeting.

I assume you’ve encountered a few serious events along the road, maybe career or romance failures, or even deaths of people who are closest to us. However, the purpose of this letter is that I really don’t want you to lose track of me, your younger self. As I already feel my youth slipping away, unable to feel that ridiculously, dangerously carefree attitude I once possessed in high school (while that is not necessarily something I want to go back to), it becomes pressing to me to preserve what left of it I have.

First and foremost, never be too hard on yourself. Remember that life is a joke, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t mean anything.

Second, I want to remind you that you wanted to make change, not money. If you’ve given into the system by now, this letter might be pointless, because I’d no longer be addressing myself but an entirely different person. Are you pirating society, breaking it down so that you can build it up "as you would”? You spoke of such ideas drunk in the sand one night, but I can confidently say they resonate deep within you.

Third, I hope your heart hasn’t been irredeemably split in two by a man you put too much trust in, but if it has, remember that you are a pioneer, you always have been, and you always can, without question, make it on your own.

All the best,

Your 22 Year Old Self

“According to psychologists, resilience, not happiness, is the opposite of depression.”

Related article: Women’s Midlife Crisis now at 30

Monday, December 30, 2013

film and the engineering of emotions

while tv and movies have only existed for the last century, I find myself constantly having to explain why I don’t watch them, as if it were some sort of sin, or as if it goes against human nature. I’ve written plenty of film studies papers. I’ve actively contemplated the ways in which they help us understand ourselves. but why does our culture worship these media forms? my best friend asked me to write about my dislike, because it’s apparently unprecedented in the millennial generation- no one gets it.

to be concise,

what I don’t like about watching tv or sitting in front of a movie is that it is passive. it is engineered not necessarily to make you think in a certain way, but to make you feel a certain way. as a person who thrives on being in control of my own emotions, I don’t necessarily enjoy being absorbed by a character’s problems and feelings, especially if they’re not good feelings. i don’t sense the productivity in doing so, in dealing with frivolous sadness or despair or worry- frivolous, because, these dealings reach beyond my immediate control.

the personal dimension to my disposition is centered on the fact that I can't tolerate my own negative emotions…and a movie immerses me in things I try not to think about, reminds me of emotions and events and relationships I long to forget. it projects my feelings before me, even tries to organize them for me, and makes me sit through the entire duration. while others might find it an escape, I find it the opposite. an introspective trap.

produced via editing and omitting, film by nature attempts to organize, to contain, encounters and life events that are inherently and overwhelmingly abstract. it cuts events that often take a lifetime to unfold into segments that confer upon the event a particular, one-dimensional or linear reading when no such thing exists, to the extent that viewers fit themselves into manmade categories and conventions in order to connect with what they see on screen. it takes me out of the position of creator and dictates the way I see my own life; it prescribes my social and personal experience. I find that a bit scary.

in the end, why would I want to be troubled with a drama so lifelike, yet artificial, when there are plenty of conundrums of consequence and meaning to be sorted out right around us? with film, we have degraded the value and excitement and unpredictability of the world itself…

art, on the other hand… art evokes the imagination, it is only what you make it. it is more hospitable to my own, deeply ingrained defense mechanism, that is, to create the world I walk in, without which I wouldn’t be as positive or as successful as I am today. unlike film, art allows me to move on, instead of lingering in a dimension in which I do not have the power to make change.

you probably don’t agree, but I’m cool with that. I’m used to it by now.

Fragonard, The Swing, 1766

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
~George Bernard Shaw