frustration – What did you bring to the potluck?

Being perfect or trying to be hasn’t really helped anyone. It’s a dumb concept and conveniently works with grind culture and other spaces I don’t want to be apart of.

I’m not perfect and I’m not sure if I even want to be anymore. It hasn’t helped me in the past and worked against my confidence. Some things just don’t work for me. I understand some people are okay with things in life and it makes them feel important and they’re amazing, but I’m not cool with a lot of things and they don’t improve my life.

I used to be so upset in school when I used to be called smart and intelligent but I still had to study and it seemed like other people did. I didn’t want to study. I didn’t even like the material! I didn’t enjoy school until I got into eleventh grade because it was more interesting then. I wanted to just be smart. I wanted everyone to keep calling me smart. I didn’t and still don’t feel smart, but I know now it’s just a meaningless label like being lazy, cool, stupid, or mature. I was called mature when I was younger because I didn’t talk, yet I cried every year at school and had some immature issue going on at home. I’m not mature. I still am not mature. I “think differently” than some people but I’m not mature nor am I special. In the classrooms that I’ve been, I’m not that well liked or even cared about. I was never put into special groups and when they’d tell me they like me, I knew they were lying. I didn’t even do my homework, I just talk a lot and want people to hear me.

Anywho, perfectionism was the reason why I didn’t do my homework. It was never advanced enough, never good enough, never worth showing, and if I did it, it was never going to be perfect. I use that annoying site Duolingo and frequently tell myself it’s okay to get less than a 100%. Nobody is watching me and the little characters still get happy when I get an 86% or less. Yet, I don’t feel smart enough. I didn’t try in school because trying and receiving failure was stressful.

I was never an A student. I never had amazing grades. I’ve always been average and always somehow got ok grades. I didn’t and still didn’t read a lot after I peaked at six. So I mean, my perfectionism is nonsensical, but it just so happens that it gets worse.

I can’t do that crap at college. Getting low grades literally make me feel dead inside and like I’m worthless, wasting my mom’s time and money, and I’d be better off dead. It literally is that bad. I hate school but I can’t drop out. I want to learn, but graduation is the only option. My life would be worthless and I’d be a bad person if I drop out. Do I think other people are that way if they drop out? No. Honestly, it’s so exhausting for me to be myself that I can only make comparisons with people in my spaces.

I am a lazy piece of crap. Some people who drop out have classically successful lives I can’t dream of having because they have drive and doesn’t matter if they were in school or not. They have something about them that makes them want to do something. I don’t. I don’t have that skill and I’m not even sure I care enough nor have faith to change it. I cannot see myself in the future really. I can make dreams and think of them but I don’t actually see them as reality nor care about things. I feel in the moment. I have ideas and plans I do in the moment, but when I make goals, sometimes they feel meaningless or not worth achieving.

And I constantly make goals. Regardless how elaborate they are to poorly planned, they don’t really work out as planned. They’re done halfway or are changed and some of those plans are okay. Majority don’t impact my life in an irreversible way, but they keep me average, forgettable, and boring.

It’s like the condescending thing a lot of older people say where there’s an idiot that’s in an obstacle course and instead of thinking of new ways to get over the brick wall, the idiot just keeps hitting the wall with a hammer and getting tired but nothing changes.

And what makes it worse is that I listen to people and their ideas of success—some that aren’t for me but I’m permeable and people can say stuff and I’ll consider it—and I never feel successful. I don’t care if I graduated high school. I don’t care if other people didn’t. I didn’t do things the way I wanted and didn’t graduate in the way that would make me smart or even competitive. I punish myself when my GPA drops. I didn’t in high school even though I should’ve.

I wanted to be those kids that studied for a long time and had no friends. I had no friends. I did the unthinkable and tried making internet friends and failed. If I could be a hermit closed off of the world or single souled (to only be happy/content) and successful, I wouldn’t have to think about my success.

That’s exactly why I just don’t like perfectionism. I don’t like being like that. I don’t like caring about people and doing what they want. I can’t help it. I can’t help wanting attention and appreciation. I just do.

Anyway, see you in a bit.☺️ I just wanted to get it off my chest.

I can’t bring myself to talk about the things I want to talk about

I’m not trying to say I don’t care anymore because that would be disingenuous, but I feel like half of my soul has been slurped out of my body and reminds out there leaving me a sad and partially empty and angry individual.

I hate whining because it seems like only a select group of people want to hear it, but dang. I hate this world. And not because it’s villainously bad or anything, it’s the bane of my existence. I cannot and I’m not sure will ever be able to stand people unless I’m sedated. And again, not just evil people that are easy to hate. I hate a lot of well-meaning people who are basking in their false senses of security while dumping every single living problem on everyone else. Not even worrying about their own lives or repercussions because they don’t have to.

I know I sound like a hypocrite. We are all a hypocrite to someone, but some people are so far up to social justice that they don’t do a single thing that is worthy or actually helps people. Same with these so called people that are allegedly the opposite that are PC killers or whatever. They’re not doing anything. Nothing has happened. Nobody has stopped the bad guy. At this point, is it even their goal to? Or to fight amongst another? Why are marginalized groups fighting for representation and yet, not getting a SINGLE DROP of glory. Ultimately, wanting and fighting for your freedom is destroying it.

People don’t want equality, they want to be happy. If you secretly have people a pill to save the world but be equal or a happy pill, I can assure you 77% would choose the happy pill.

Is this a bad thing?

No. Equality isn’t freedom. Human kind doesn’t want freedom. They want to be happy and happy all the time. They don’t care about others. As long as their happy and if they lost dimensions of their soul to be in Heaven, Nirvana, and other joyous places, they’d take it. Nobody cares about, you don’t care about others. I like to believe I do, but tons of well-meaning but self serving people have told me all humans are bad and only care about themselves no matter how many times I tried to argue that I just will go as they say. Their microcosm probably is Hell, itself.

Drawing is my life, but it’s not a need. I don’t breathe art. I’m not an artist. I do drawings and cartoons and some people call it art. I stopped, because frankly, the word meant something to me and it hindered my progress.

I don’t want to be an artist anymore.

Art, by definition, is one of the stupidest and strangest concepts to mankind and only exists to sell a collective universal that doesn’t exist. Kerry James Marshall’s Black art only resonates with me because we are both Black. I cannot relate to the pictures. I don’t have the lived experience. However, galleries and political pictures don’t care.

It’s easier for many people to lump people into groups because it’s convenient and they don’t have to think hard at all to where the point in their head is it has boobs and a skirt, big lips, big hips. It a female. Must reproduce. It got gray sweatpants on and has a beard and features of a male. It a male. Must reproduce. Groups are convenient and some people can’t live without them and have what is like an autistic meltdown when it’s change.

I don’t want someone invalidating my creation as an art object because it doesn’t follow some outdated idea of what it’s supposed to look like. Which brings me to my next point.

Everyone says study realism and anatomy and your art will improve.

TO WHAT?!

What is my artwork supposed to be looking like? I’ve had people share their expectations for me to get better and it tanked my self esteem and my little heart. WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO BE IMPROVING ON?!

Everyone says art is soooo subjective and you can do anything you want but then you read an article to improve your way and get dunked with so many (honestly worthless) opinions and if you’re silly and young like me, don’t take them with a grain of salt because everyone is saying that.

So, I learn anatomy and realism…and then break the rules I spent my whole time not having fun or enjoying and going back to cartoons I wanted to draw 300+ years ago…and I look to see that I actually wanted to draw that way even if the art style is bad to everyone…what now? Do I stop enjoying what I love because it’s not good enough?

No offense, but we need to stop telling kids to be themselves. You’re always going to be yourself. You cannot escape your body, your physiology, your mind. Let’s say you’re in a play as Hamlet.

There’s a script, but your choices to act and how to deliver are purely your own and are just as frustrating if you had whatever. Stop telling kids that.

Their enough is never enough and they’ll live with it and if they don’t, I’m sorry. I’m learning the sheer inconvenience and frustration being myself.

My art is not abstract enough to be marketable, my art is not realistic or impressive. My own family ignores my art objects and drawings unless I gaslight them or perform a whole ASPCA commercial for attention.

I don’t enjoy drawing more realistically but I know I have to.

Unless you have an interest that is marketable that everyone likes or you want the glory, you’re going to get ignored or be lucky and have a niche group of people like and want to pay for your interests.