Focus

To be totally honest, I was slightly dreading the art review today. I remembered the last time we went through the art pieces with Charlie Chaplin. People were making interesting points, but I was still pretty bored and I dozed off the entire time. Of course I didn't want to. My brain sometimes takes my control away and starts running towards the clouds.

This time was different though. I was fully intrigued by the conversation we were having on all the Dada pieces. After having a full year of STAC under my belt, I had some intelligent things to say beyond "That piece looks really cool!" What once seemed unbearably dull suddenly became quite interesting.

I think it's interesting how your brain can change the amount of interest it puts in. No one wants to be lazy, but there are just some subjects where no matter how hard you try to focus, it still makes no sense. Is interest a conscious or unconscious decision? Or both?

In the beginning of last year, I trained myself to listen to music. It used to be if I attempted to listen to any song beyond a basic pop song, my mind would just drift in the first 30 seconds and I wouldn't remember a single thing I heard. For some reason, I just couldn't pay attention. My brain wouldn't operate.

In order to be able to listen to this music without boring myself, I kept it on while doing other things. While doing homework, brushing teeth, lying around, I kept the music on in the background CONSTANTLY. Eventually, I adapted to it. When I attempted to listen to the music on its own, I found that my focus lasted longer and longer. It went from 30 seconds to 2 minutes to the whole song just about. The music became so much more enjoyable.

Maybe focus takes practice. That would explain many things. Why don't many people read books? Books require focus, which you need to work at before it becomes fluent. Why is music so simple nowadays? People haven't trained themselves to focus into listening to something that won't immediately make sense in their mind. Why do most people quickly browse through art museums? They haven't trained themselves to look at one piece for a long time.

The thing is, if you were to follow the logic that focus takes practice, how come some people at our age still can't focus in class? Perhaps it's a combination of effort and desire to learn.

Maybe that's one of the flaws of common education. People don't feel like fighting the discouraging powers of their inability to focus. They don't see a purpose. Maybe if there was something to convince people to fight their natural habit of not paying attention, people would improve.

There's still another thing to consider though. Even though some people have put the effort to improve their focusing skills, most of the general population has not. How can you create focused art for those who are unable to focus? How can you have complex art if there aren't people able to appreciate it? Sure you could make your complex art anyway, but if most people can't handle it then you've gone for broke. Conforming to simple ideals to please an audience is bad as well. Is there a balance?

Imagination

Today's workshop was less of an intense emotional experience and more of a run around like rambling idiots experience. My specialty. More importantly though, we focused on expanding our imaginations.

After the acting workshop last week, I had an epiphany. The way that I could become a better actor was by taking advantage of my vivid imagination. After all, I can imagine things like robots ripping each other to shreds on the streets outside my house or bugs crawling up my arms. Why the can't I imagine a normal scenario?

Today, we had to do an exercise in which we held our phone in one hand and held a cool glass of water in the other. I could see these objects in my hands. The drink was already making me thirsty. Then, we had to imagine the glass of water being filled to the brim. I was already getting nervous, because I knew with my luck  I was definitely gonna tip it over. I watched intently. Luke seemed to notice, pointing out how intent I looked. Then, he decided to throw an imaginary ball at me and I freaked out. I attempted to bounce it off my chest because I had no hands to catch it with. Also, I didn't want to spill that drink.

That's when I realized, haha, that ball wasn't actually real. But man, it sure FELT real. And I was still holding that cup and cellphone in my hand. I guess I knew that none of those things existed. I made them real though, so they did exist. They existed as much as I wanted them too.

I guess the moral is to take use of your imagination. It baffles me just how powerful imagination is. For good or for bad. Mostly good though. Hopefully.

Acting = Pain

They say that anyone can act regardless of experience. That's bull.

Acting is hard because it's one of those things that's supposed to come naturally but you really don't know how to get to it naturally. It's sort of like attempting to split when you're not flexible. You know your legs are supposed to go down all the way, but it just doesn't work. After the acting class today I think I'm starting to get the idea though. Acting is supposed to feel real even when the situations you're playing out are not real at all. Most of it is based imagination and expectations.

"What are you thinking right now? What were you just imagining in your head?" When Luke asked these questions, I shut down. It's hard to describe your daydreams. It's like night dreaming.  You usually forget after you wake up. Also, a lot like night dreams, you really don't want to tell people what was going through your head.

A funny thing I've noticed is whenever people ask me what I'm thinking about, my mind automatically triggers to the things I DON'T want to tell them. Then those thoughts take over what I was actually thinking about, and to avoid revealing something negative, I freeze.

I thought that was was hard. After the questions, there was the stealing of the hat. Oh boy. That was much worse. I tried to approach the task with Bold Optimism, as we always say. But it was very discouraging.

So we had to go and act out stealing a hat. Considering the fact I had not much in the way of acting experience or stealing experience, I sucked. Really badly. It was hard for me to imagine myself in a situation in which I was stealing something. I imagined myself at music camp sneaking into my bunk at 12 AM at night to pick up a hat before the late night party, something that wouldn't be totally crazy (since everyone usually stayed up until 3). It didn't seem real though. Nothing I could think up seemed concrete, and I was lost in an open space.

Luke kept saying "Make it real Ellen!" I tried, I really did. I knew what I was doing was bad, but I didn't have a clue how to make it better. I tried again and again, but I was only met with more failure. I admit, I was getting frustrated. Luke wasn't making any sense to me and no matter what I tried, it turned out to be crap. Plus everyone was laughing their head off at me. I knew this was supposed to help me improve, so I braved through it. That doesn't mean I enjoyed it though. It was awful.

Then Luke screamed "HURRY UP ELLEN WE DON'T HAVE ALL DAY!" My feelings went from frustrated to guilty, and more importantly, scared. I knew I had to get the goddamn thing over with. So I ran over, grabbed the hat and ran.

And THEN I got it. I was nervous about getting in trouble, so I ran over and got the hat. Clever clever.

Now I understand how acting is supposed to feel like. It's supposed to feel JUST as real as the actual thing. The thing I need to learn now is how to access that on my own without a teacher screaming at me. That's the skill.

This experience hasn't scared me off from acting though. In fact, it's opened a door in a way. I was putting myself into unpleasant situations, and even though it was painful, there was something oddly exciting about it. Maybe it's the thrill of the challenge, the way you want to prove that you can conquer the pain and use your body to its full ability. Whatever it is, I like it, and I'm ready for blood sweat and tears. Bring it.

Hormones?

Generally, I believe that there are 2 things that affect a person's emotions at a basic level. The way a person reacts to themselves and their thoughts as well as the way a person reacts to the events that take place in their environment. That would make sense, I mean how else could something influence your emotions?

I've been thinking though. Thinking about thinking. Since human beings have the power of intelligence, we have a tendency to over think everything. We believe that we are creatures greater than anything created in the universe. At the same time though, we still do everything all the "lower" forms of life do. We still eat, digest, take a crap, and reproduce. What's so profound about that?

One thing that I have a habit of doing is analyzing why I feel a certain way. Why am I happy right now? Why am I sad right now? Why do I feel like punching that kid in the face even though he didn't say anything offensive to me? What happens a lot of times is that this leads no where. Why? I mean, if you follow the rule that emotions are either affected by a person's thoughts or environmental influence, there should be a reason. But often there isn't.

Then I realize. There's a third thing that affects a person's emotions. What happens in their body that they're not even aware of. Teenagers are known for often having mood swings because of their raging hormones. Girls get PMS. It's beyond our control.

Even though our minds are so strong, we are still at the will of our basic animal habits. Instead of our mind guiding our bodies, our bodies guide our mind, and they don't have the common sense that the mind does.

People can say they're sad and they feel as if they have to drag themselves through everyday. Are they sad, or are their bodies just becoming weak from deprivation of sleep? A girl says that she's ugly because she can't seem to attract guys. Does she have low self esteem, or is this just the brain's reaction to insatiable hormones?

Sometimes I think the emotions we feel are false.

Thinking about this makes me unsettled. If we can't control our minds, our minds are worth nothing. Without minds, we are nothing. Are we all just creatures of nothing? I suppose the only thing that makes us different from animals is that we have minds to torture us.

Thinking

For those of you who know me well, you know that I'm completely crazy and my thoughts fly from place to place like wildfire. For those of you who don't know me, this is something that you will soon probably learn.

I think most people put a barrier on how fast their mind thinks. They take thoughts in slowly, in bite sized pieces that can be easily managed. It makes the incredible powers of the human mind seem less intense. For those who decide to use full power of their mind though, they can gain so many more benefits. I know so many people who get bored easily, who constantly need entertainment through the means of technology or other stimulating activities. I think the wisest people are those that sit down and entertain themselves through mental stimulation alone. Just having a conversation with themselves in their head about their surroundings. It makes a person at internal peace.

Something I believe is that as children, we didn't have this barrier on our thoughts. As kids, we would always play imaginative games, something that very few people play nowadays. It was the norm to play with dolls and create complex stories for them, or to play House and take the roles on ourselves. We were constantly creating our world.

Somewhere along the line though, probably around middle school, possibly earlier, we learn from society that this free form of thinking is bad. We suppress our intelligent thoughts and fill them with stupid. Our minds melt as we go through life observing the work of others like TV, or wasting time on games developed for easy enjoyment, or talking to other unintelligent people about pretty much nothing. It's a shame, but I believe that with effort this bad habit can be gotten rid of.

So little times in our life are we asked to just sit and think. When we got an assignment in which we were supposed to chart our though processes, I was interested to see what people would come up with and what I would create.

I assumed to find some common topics, but after doing the project I didn't think that everything was so interconnected. All of the things I listed linked to 4 different topics: Freedom, Purpose, Happiness, and Power. Some things I listed even linked to 2 of these topics at the same time. It was so interesting to see how unrelated things are completely connected. One problem I had actually was finding space to bring lines back to my basic point.

My favorite path that I created started from listing Friends. The path went friends -> new experiences -> insight -> knowledge -> power. Insight, that's such a fantastic word. After making that path, I found that almost anything I liked could be linked to new experiences, insight, knowledge, and power. It all started making sense.

Then the project became more serious, and more scary. I became honest with myself and listed things that I secretly loved. Sprouting from my name, I put Sadness. Why did I like sadness so much? Well, sadness -> darkness -> evil -> power. That gave me chills. The only way I could react was sitting in awe. I've often had those kind of thoughts suppressed. When my mind was given permission to run free though, it ran wild. I had to admit to myself that the reason why I can be depressive is because of a craving for the power of evil and darkness.

Enough about myself though. Seeing other people's projects, I could tell even before reading the words they listed what they were like. Some people's charts consisted of only of horizontal and vertical lines, while others had diagonals. Some were written small and others large. Some had large spaces while others where compressed. It's so funny how much people give away without knowing it.

I don't know if any of you have ever heard of a Freudian Slip. It's basically when someone slips up a sentence they're saying by saying something accidentally that they've had in the back of their mind. For example, a person asks, "Would you like some bread and butter or cake?" to which the other person responds, "Bed and butter, oops!" You can see whats really on their mind. We don't just do this in speech though. We do this all the time in simple ways that only very careful people can observe, like body language, among other things.

But all of those things are written out on the wall now.

First Day Inspirations

The first day of school. Gosh, during the summer it seemed like school was just a bad nightmare that all children experienced. Now we're back. With a new school year comes a new set of high hopes, since there hasn't been quite enough time to crush them yet. I'm optimistic though, for STAC, for school, and for my future as a sophomore.

The most important part of the day for me was when Luke gave a speech on his life. Specifically, I was inspired by how in a matter of 8 months, Luke was able to teach himself how to be a director. The power of independence and perspiration can really help you accomplish great feats. One important thing that I learned from STAC last year is that talent is luck, and luck runs out. The only way to accomplish anything is hard, repetitive, sometimes painful and miserable work. That's just the way it is, and honestly that's the only way it could be. Otherwise, all bums could be artists.

One problem that I've been having recently is that I have been asked to compose songs on several occasions (for example, my brother's video games). This all seemed good in concept. After all, I'm a musician, I play many instruments including the piano which is often vital for composition, and I love to fool around with notes and make stuff up. The thing is though, I know almost NOTHING about composing whatsoever. I haven't even the faintest clue on where to start. Forming melodies with harmonies, complex chord changes, this is all a foreign language to me.

That doesn't mean I shouldn't try though. If Luke can learn how to run a theater program for a college in 8 months on his own, I think I have a pretty decent shot at teaching myself how to write music. Somehow, I convinced my mom to stop by Barnes and Noble to pick up the Idiot's Guide to Composition. It sounds silly, but it seems like as good a place to start as any.

Anyway, I hope that you all had an amazing summer. Returners, welcome back! And newbies, welcome to your new home. I'll sure you'll appreciate it.

The Artist's Workplace and Determination

As some of you may know, I live in a house with a lot of hoarding, which has been pretty stressful lately. I want a clean place. Of course, I can never have the entire house clean. That's just not possible with the situation I'm in and the people I live with. Recently though, I realized that if I had a small section for myself and my music then maybe it could be more bearable.

I've tried using my room to write songs but it's quite small and too close to parents. The general music room in my house is right next to the family room, and I needed something more private. It's hard to focus with all the people walking around, the junk, the time I spend going through piles of unorganized music, and the frustration of when people pile stuff on the piano bench where I'm supposed to sit. I really just needed a place of my own, something I could control without other people getting in my way. Virginia Woolf once said "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." That's pretty much relevant to any kind of artist regardless of gender.

During the songwriting workshop about 2 weeks ago and I asked Phil how he organized all of his instruments. He told me that he kept them all up on the wall. In my basement I have a series of 5 long shelves on the wall, which I realized were perfect. That's when I knew I had to clean out my basement. This seemed almost impossible though. The corner not in use had basically been kept as a large garbage square ever since my parents moved into the house. Junk was piled so high you couldn't even walk into the area.

I couldn't give up because I knew that this was my rite of passage. I could feel it. This was the challenge I had to go through to continue on with my life and prosper. With the help my parents, I began the task. Obsessively I cleaned. One week later, I dealt with all of the holiday decorations and got an entryway into the area. 

It was getting better, but I still wasn't there yet. I was determined that I would have my workplace clean so I could begin. Yesterday I cleaned for 4 hours straight.

This is how it looks as of today. It's not perfect, but now I finally have enough space to begin moving in. I made my claim to the shelves by bringing down a good amount of my instrument collection. Now, the place is mine. I still need to continue cleaning until I'm done, but now I can get started towards my music. For real.

What I'm trying to say here is NEVER give up when difficult obstacles get in your way. Don't be discouraged if something seems too hard to do because if your put in strength and effort, you can go far places. Follow your path. And who knows, you may even find yourself your very own sperm tie.