You Are Not What You (Don't) Make
Okay, so. Here’s the thing. I know I said I don’t like New Year’s resolutions, but I think I just don’t really like Goals much in general.
(This is problematic in theory, because I have a Job, and I also help other people with their Jobs, which, as you might imagine: involves setting Goals. But that is my Job, where I work with and in support of a team who help me with Goals, and not my Life; it’s easier to do these things in community (which is a good lesson anyway, not only for your Job).)
Particularly for more “creative” goals. Even if I try and keep the pressure off, it’s just… there. Lurking. It sucks the joy out of basically anything I’m working towards, because my brain automatically leaps several steps ahead, thinking solely on the outcome or finished product, whatever that is. The outcomes are the only thing I can think of, which is the fatal flaw that makes it so they rarely happen to any satisfying degree. Then the (pretty much) inevitable happens, what with the ADHD and all: projects get abandoned, I’m distracted by something shiny and new and fun, and the spiral of guilt and shame sucks me down into the tar-black pit of seemingly validated despair.
… Gross. But changeable! (Hopefully.)
If you, like me, have this problem, what I’m trying with reframing and putting my energy into is this:
Process over output. Focus on, and spend more time with, the action or steps to doing something, instead of what’s produced at the end.
(You know, I hate when something sounds so simple, because I’m like: Yeah. Of course. Of course that’d be helpful if I’m stuck on what I produce, and can’t make the practice of producing stick. It’s common sense, I’ve probably heard this so many times!)
(But. But.)
(I am frequently reminding myself that I’m a constant jumble of new-old-blooming thoughts and values and experiences, that all inform and destroy each other, like some chaotic Big Bang playing out in miniature inside my skull and my chest and my gut. Reflection and introspection brings me (and you!) back to new insight from old knowledge. I think that’s pretty sick.)
In being mindful of making things sustainable, this approach has to feel good in order to work. That’s important. Finding the joy is paramount, as well as lowering the barrier for energy, so that I’m able to gain momentum in picking it up at any moment.
Take photography/videography, for example. Back in 2014 I bought a Canon T3i DSLR, enamoured with fashion and lifestyle vloggers and the people I followed on Lookbook. My first big purchase just for myself, and I had so many plans! I bought it because I liked how it looked shooting 24fps; I got a 50mm lens to take all the cute bokeh shots; my favourite YouTuber recommended it. And listen, I didn’t not use it, but it was heavy and bulky and made me self-conscious - mostly of living up to the value and intended outcome I’d attached to it. It’s stayed on the shelf far more often than not.
Flash-forward to the end of this past September: my friend Sam told me she bought a film camera. I was having A Time, and I’m a big fan of retail therapy. It was relatively cheap, super light, and it took half-frame shots. That means you regularly get double the amount of photos out of your 35mm rolls! It also forces you to think differently with how you frame your shots - portrait photos are taken holding the camera horizontally, and landscape holding it vertically. That, coupled with the fact that you can’t immediately get a sense of what the result is after you click the shutter button, made me think this was the right choice to start seeing if I could actively apply this mindset.
Dear reader, I’m happy to report: I think it’s working. Which is to say, now I only don’t bring the film camera out when I actually forget it, as opposed to wallowing in feeling like I can only use it if I take Good Photos, while it sits like a boulder in my bag and never sees the light of day. I even got a little mirrorless camera that has a lot of the same attributes - fairly unobtrusive, easy to carry around, prime lens. Less choices to distract with decision paralysis, leaning harder into joyful impulse in the long run.
The greater challenge in the coming weeks and years will be applying this to my writing. I have to overcome a lifetime of only being able to see a finished product I’ve never been able to reach, and believing that was the only path to success, the only thing of value. Examining the idea of process over output is an act of redefining what value means to me with this practice.
I’ll end by saying this continues to be a work in progress (as I’ll probably end everything by saying). There are days where I can’t help but get stuck on the outcome, hinging abstract or faraway hopes on them. That’s the nature of the daydreamer. But this is work that feels essential, and good, and right, and I’m not going to ignore that.
Anyways, that’s discovery, baby!
(is this?? a new catchphrase????????)
(lol)
(here’s a few pictures i took that i liked from the past few months - this is the first time i’ve even taken the memory card out of the new camera)
