![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
This book made me try to draw
Aug. 24th, 2015 07:02 pmLast Monday night and Tuesday I stayed at my mom's place because my brother was in Iceland. Mom had bought a book for him and by the time he got back Tuesday night we had both read it. It took me an hour.
The book is "The Crossroads of Should and Must," by Elle Luna, and it's a fast read because it's heavily illustrated--the writer is also an artist, and the book is beautiful, vibrant and expressive, in a colorful big-brush-strokes-y style that reminds me a bit of the "Max the Dog" books that Tim had when we were kids and a bit of the rainbow-lettered line of life advice inspirational things popular for families in the 90s, of which I still have the "How to Be an Artist" mug.
The specific genre of this book is one I tend to derisively refer to as "inspiration porn," a genre I am generally somewhat dubious of as I find it often to be pretty shallow and frequently victim-blamey ("Feeling stressed out about all the stressful shit going on in your life? That's your own fault for choosing to be stressed! Just, like, stop feeling stressed out about things, maaan!") and I have developed the admittedly cynical belief that, in large part, the role of self-help/productivity-boosting literature in our culture is to deflect attention away from the structural and cultural shenaniganry that keep us a society of permanently stressed-out unhappy people and set us up for a life of constantly "improving" ourselves instead of the society we live in (worst offender: "Who Moved My Cheese?"). But on the other hand, I am also all for self-improvement and continual growth and lifelong learning and all that sort of thing, which is probably why I end up reading so much self-helpy stuff anyway even though I end up hating most of it.
That said, this is a pretty down-to-earth book as far as inspirational writing goes. It's full of "actionable" ideas--so many that you're free to pick and choose and combine them and make up your own if any occur to you, rather than being dictated to that this is how to do it--it's not one of those One Weird Trick to Becoming a Happy Healthy Hyperproductive Capitalist Robot And Liking It pieces. And it doesn't promise any quick fixes--a lot of it is about planning, asking questions, and developing awareness of things you might be thinking or doing unconsciously (what the rest of the self-help game calls "mindfulness", I guess, and academia calls "deconstruction"--what am I actually doing right now and why am I doing it?).
This book would take a lot longer than an hour to read if I actually stopped and asked myself all the questions, which I didn't. I should read it again and do that sometime, although it's likely I won't. I should especially do this because I have far too many interests, so I have trouble settling into a "passion" or a "calling"--sometimes I feel like I ought to say it's writing because it's the most productive and has the biggest community of people for whom it is also their passion around it, rather than because I myself actually have stories to tell. I feel like most of the time I more want to acquire things than produce them--acquire stories, skills, languages, experiences, knowledge--also some actual stuff, to be honest, like a Disney villian mansion--and that I feel like I ought to produce or create rather than just consume, more as a moral imperative than an actual drive of my own. And I procrastinate on writing fabulously--I go to the gym every morning, I read about 75 books a year, I write reviews for all of them, I've started taking Irish and I keep finding myself actually studying outside of class, I have too many friends (HOW DID THAT HAPPEN) and I guess I clean a lot now? Reading this book made me want to write, but also to draw, and also to study Irish harder and practice Tarot and write better reviews than I've been doing. What I actually did was finish the bowl of ice cream I was eating and wash the dishes, then I picked up my paper journal and wrote the first draft of this review. It's been nearly a year since I used my paper journal; I think I need to journal more as well I think--I always feel better when I do. And now I'm thinking about how I've tied up all my writing stuff SUPER ORGANIZEDLY into a whole complicated mess of computers and it's made it difficult for me to write if everything isn't just so--if I don't have all my shit with me but also am out of the house. That's dumb. I should make it easier for myself to write, not harder.
I really should reread the book and make myself a plan. I like to plan. I should probably create a system of incentives, too.
Ach, weel. As of when I first read this book I have suddenly become extremely broke, so I am sure I will have plenty of time to sit around and work on all the things as I must necessarily give up all my optional spending for a little bit.
The book is "The Crossroads of Should and Must," by Elle Luna, and it's a fast read because it's heavily illustrated--the writer is also an artist, and the book is beautiful, vibrant and expressive, in a colorful big-brush-strokes-y style that reminds me a bit of the "Max the Dog" books that Tim had when we were kids and a bit of the rainbow-lettered line of life advice inspirational things popular for families in the 90s, of which I still have the "How to Be an Artist" mug.
The specific genre of this book is one I tend to derisively refer to as "inspiration porn," a genre I am generally somewhat dubious of as I find it often to be pretty shallow and frequently victim-blamey ("Feeling stressed out about all the stressful shit going on in your life? That's your own fault for choosing to be stressed! Just, like, stop feeling stressed out about things, maaan!") and I have developed the admittedly cynical belief that, in large part, the role of self-help/productivity-boosting literature in our culture is to deflect attention away from the structural and cultural shenaniganry that keep us a society of permanently stressed-out unhappy people and set us up for a life of constantly "improving" ourselves instead of the society we live in (worst offender: "Who Moved My Cheese?"). But on the other hand, I am also all for self-improvement and continual growth and lifelong learning and all that sort of thing, which is probably why I end up reading so much self-helpy stuff anyway even though I end up hating most of it.
That said, this is a pretty down-to-earth book as far as inspirational writing goes. It's full of "actionable" ideas--so many that you're free to pick and choose and combine them and make up your own if any occur to you, rather than being dictated to that this is how to do it--it's not one of those One Weird Trick to Becoming a Happy Healthy Hyperproductive Capitalist Robot And Liking It pieces. And it doesn't promise any quick fixes--a lot of it is about planning, asking questions, and developing awareness of things you might be thinking or doing unconsciously (what the rest of the self-help game calls "mindfulness", I guess, and academia calls "deconstruction"--what am I actually doing right now and why am I doing it?).
This book would take a lot longer than an hour to read if I actually stopped and asked myself all the questions, which I didn't. I should read it again and do that sometime, although it's likely I won't. I should especially do this because I have far too many interests, so I have trouble settling into a "passion" or a "calling"--sometimes I feel like I ought to say it's writing because it's the most productive and has the biggest community of people for whom it is also their passion around it, rather than because I myself actually have stories to tell. I feel like most of the time I more want to acquire things than produce them--acquire stories, skills, languages, experiences, knowledge--also some actual stuff, to be honest, like a Disney villian mansion--and that I feel like I ought to produce or create rather than just consume, more as a moral imperative than an actual drive of my own. And I procrastinate on writing fabulously--I go to the gym every morning, I read about 75 books a year, I write reviews for all of them, I've started taking Irish and I keep finding myself actually studying outside of class, I have too many friends (HOW DID THAT HAPPEN) and I guess I clean a lot now? Reading this book made me want to write, but also to draw, and also to study Irish harder and practice Tarot and write better reviews than I've been doing. What I actually did was finish the bowl of ice cream I was eating and wash the dishes, then I picked up my paper journal and wrote the first draft of this review. It's been nearly a year since I used my paper journal; I think I need to journal more as well I think--I always feel better when I do. And now I'm thinking about how I've tied up all my writing stuff SUPER ORGANIZEDLY into a whole complicated mess of computers and it's made it difficult for me to write if everything isn't just so--if I don't have all my shit with me but also am out of the house. That's dumb. I should make it easier for myself to write, not harder.
I really should reread the book and make myself a plan. I like to plan. I should probably create a system of incentives, too.
Ach, weel. As of when I first read this book I have suddenly become extremely broke, so I am sure I will have plenty of time to sit around and work on all the things as I must necessarily give up all my optional spending for a little bit.
