So rather than going to the gym, doing my readings and then writing up some notes for my first meeting with my supervisor tomorrow.. I have had a productive day of procrastination strategies, that have ultimately proved fruitful.
Firstly I finally got back onto a console to play a game, as I babysat my nephew who felt scared in a room on his own. All my family members were not in the house. Though it meant I had to leave the comfort of my study set-up in a separate room, I am glad because I got to spend some time with my nephew. But more than that I played a game on a console without thinking of anyone else, but the game and my present company. A huge deal when you know that the past 5 years my life has revolved around games and one person who just encapsulated all of that cultural slice of life and was my life. (In some ways he will always be, considering I take my life with me, and he’s rolled up in it like some colourful funky playdoh tub, which will no doubt get bigger)*
*This prose is giving my artistic ideas, but also now reminding me of all the other strong role models in life I have had, who taught me the value of play. Of striving to capturing points and puzzling for one’s own self-satisfaction. Perhaps this is a thread of (self-)inquiry I will return to in the future, I hope. Because despite the at times saddening, regretful, reflections on my time with games and this person, I do believe in an inherent worth and do prescribe a lot of value and importance to this media form. Despite what people may think of me and my reserved nature within that heavily ‘clique-filled’ sub-culture.
Anyway to return to the other aspects of productivity;
Chapter One: “I……… T…….” (Working titles don’t want it stolen!)
An old colleague and tutor (not of me, but of friends), well I guess we can say he was a tutor of life as an occasional drinking companion and fellow northern pub debater, reached out with some lovely and helpful messaging via Facebook. Believe me, I never thought this day would come. Again, slightly tinged with sadness, as I begin to miss my distant-past again, my friends and these great people full of encouragement and warmth. No matter what is said of Yorkshire, I am increasingly finding that those warm-filled, hospitable, personalities are dwindling up here. It is not what it was. A sad consequence of this terrible timeline we find ourselves in. But somehow I am still looking for the warmth still, the hope and positivity that is shining through. Small news items from around the globe can be applied on a local scale. Morals need to be lived, believed and practiced. Be it the story of the young boy who donated to his local mosque, or this man who sat by this heavily veiled woman on a train or this man who listened to this taxi driver.
We are one big networked global society. Especially us, those like me of the “Millenials” generation (born 1980s – early 2000s), a problematic category to be fair in my opinion, but there are things that unite us more so than any other;
- Our generation was subjected to the largest expansion of successive technological advancements than any other.
- More than that, we were the first to be marketed these technologies that encroach on our private spaces
- We were the generation who was voiceless and also came to have a voice during the largest ideological war, with the greatest number of deaths than any other… and “the war”/”this war” whatever rhetoric you follow isn’t over yet..
- Put simply: We had the World Wide Web, we had mobile phones, Tablets, Smart TVs, VRs, Game Consoles, Online Play, E-readers, Social Media, Streaming Play, Worldwide Video calling.. to name a few.
- PLUS they were all marketed to us! Ever since we were in our adolescence.
- AND we were the victims of corrupted ideologies, economic, political and social.
- BUT blamed for being ignorant, volatile, naive perpetrators embroiled in the mess we find ourselves in and inheriting.
So yeah.. that’s another productive tangent I flew on. Ideas that are no doubt expressed many places before. More eloquently. But I hope to do these beliefs justice as I start to grow confidence, so that I too can add my voice to the fray for a more peaceful tomorrow.
Chapter Two: Happy Sites for a Happy Life
I got a date! No really a proper one.. one with a sit-down coffee, with an interesting guy… who wants to just talk! Can you believe that! And I made the first contact.. something about drawing I think, as there was a portrait as one of his pix. Scary I know!
As I’ve been listening to Sia playlists to find my inner animal bitch to get on with finding my strong honest voice in writing, I think my emotions are a bit in flux. But more so now. I mean I am in no way physically ready for this, I think.. and I don’t want to jeopardise it by letting anyone know, expect you dear readers who don’t know me in RL (though, those of you who do probably I know do not check in everyday so yay my written shyness!).
I’ll stop there now. Though, I must say I don’t expect this to go any further than having a new acquaintance, I know I’m not everyone’s cup of tea. Also, like now when Sia’s “You have been loved” comes on, my heart wrenches a little as this old mind of mine wrenches through thoughts of past, present, future Mariam’s all yelling out that love was never on the cards for you and you should be grateful to God that you had it, if only for a few short years. It is more than most.
Chapter Three: I am bitter-sweet and in-between
So my exercise in late-night Logo Design leads to Sketching like mad. I’m reminded of my first and only love. The babies I produce. The only ones I am again sure I will only ever know. I cry. But it is an old truthism that will become stronger, once I mourn the imagined ones that were concocted in playful naive love, then kept alive in a maternal lovers cocoon in the face of bitter self-inflicted partnered strife.. okay this grey-mattered nonsense is not helpful. Revisiting old sites of harm. It’s the first rule to learn as a person with emotionally obsessive-compulsive self-harming personality traits.. or re-learned in my case.
Anyway, here is the fruits of my doodling endeavours. I will let the marks speak for themselves as I float to bed and at the very least prepare mentally for tomorrow.
Thanks for reading!
My logo-ideas or sketching, first time in years following observation with references to Nicholas Hilliard , Arabic Calligraphy, Sphinx, Globe Icons, Hexagons, Honey, etc..
Mariam Kauser 