Doodles from the Cube, 8th ed.

Hiding the True Self

We can’t hide our true self.  Well at least not forever.  As much as we often pile over ourselves all manner of disguises to make ourselves appear different to the outside world, underneath it all we are truly ourselves.

What does that mean anyway?  I have a tendency to start with a concept like this and end up diving into the uttermost deepest details in search of that little detail, that pearl of wisdom that will illuminate the whole thing.  But sometimes this rigor can be quite tedious to the casual observer.  In other words – its boring!

But I want to share a story that happened recently that illustrated this point.  As I have pointed out previously, I began drawing again.  I feel like I’m at AA now: 

Hi Everyone.  My name’s Sven and I’m a drawaholic.  I’m addicted to drawahol. 

I guess there are worse things to be addicted to.  OK I digress – but when I draw, I like having an idea of what I am drawing.  I have been practicing a little bit with people and critters, but I really like drawing concept pieces.  I start with a concept and then I slowly draw the picture out.  It takes a while really.

Well, one of my first new concept pieces was very illustrative of the journey that I’m currently on: jobbing to unjobbing.  So, the picture was rather simple in concept but ballooned in terms of material.

The drawing would simply be a guy looking out from his cube into a fantastical land.  There is a knight looking out over a hill that has a view of a lake and a mountain in the distance.  I put in other vegetation and trees and all sorts of stuff – lots of detail to train myself to take drawing things slow.  I was taking the time to draw each individual leaf of the trees and each individual rock that the viewer sees so much so that I got bogged into the details and completely forgot about the concept.

Anyway, I was working on this at work to help alleviate some analytical fatigue, until suddenly my neighbor appears.

“Hey Sven, sooo…the problem with…” he started and went on into something about work.  Completely taken off guard I turned and listened.  Then all of a sudden – “Oh wow, did you draw that?” and he picks my picture up.  I was partially obscuring it, but he managed to notice it and got to it before I knew anything about it.  At first, I didn’t mind it because – hey, I was drawing trees.  Who doesn’t do that from time to time?

But I felt a little embarrassed.  People don’t usually draw.  Normal people who work normal jobs and live normal lives do not draw - normally.  I’ve told this to myself many times in my subconscious, but here I am being not normal again.  “Wow this is pretty good,” he admitted.  “Is this you over here,” he said pointing to an obvious caricature of myself. 

That’s when I felt really embarrassed.  Somewhat inadvertently, but nonetheless deliberate, I had made myself the day dreamer in the picture.  Worse yet – and this was not pointed out – I had strapped him to the chair as a symbolic prisoner to the “real” world.

I couldn’t (and didn’t) say anything intelligible at that point.

Then, to make things worse, the commotion (which I didn’t think that it was that big of a commotion) attracted the attention of my boss, who happened to be walking by my cube at the time.  She suddenly appeared and looked on at what the hubbub was about.

To my semi-relief, she also looked at it in awe and made the same observation about my caricature.  “So, is this guy wanting to leave and be a knight?”  I turned red as a radish in silence.  My neighbor and my boss went back and forth about a couple of things, but definitely came to the conclusion that the cube guy was me.  Did they see him strapped in?  Did they get the symbolism?

I was honored that they appreciated what I had drawn, or noticed that I had talent.  Or at least that it was deemed “good”.  But I felt almost apologetic that I let my true self come through.  That I was caught drawing, but moreover, depicted in obvious overtones that I want out.

But why embarrassed?  I don’t know.  Was I judging them?  Was I judging my job?  No on both, but I think that it could be construed that way.  How could I explain myself other than, I really don’t feel like I am this person that you think that you know.  This really would be easier if I was unjobbing!

I think the point of this whole thing is that we have to recognize that there is a true self in all of us, and that we will be happiest when we are true to that self and the world recognizes that.

God bless,

Sven

Doodles from the Cube, 7th ed.

Anecdote from the Kids

Yuck – I am STILL under the weather as I write this.  I can’t hear out of one ear and I still cough quite a bit.  Work has picked up and I have also been busy getting my Christian metal album out to folks.  Good thing is that I see the light at the end of the tunnel on BOTH of these things (sickness and my album) and I can get back to normal creative life.

But that isn’t what I wanted to write about.  My wife shared with me something that I found to be very sad – and something that I think is indicative of an ill in our society at large.

Our kids are active programmers on Scratch.  If you are not familiar with Scratch, it is a GUI intensive programming language aimed at teaching kids the basics of programs.  Things like how to use a while loop etc.  Users on Scratch then are naturally kids and like to program kid friendly things like online tax software…No wait – I mean like games.  Which reminds me – need to do the taxes this weekend…

Anyway, Svetlana shared with me a very sad trend on Scratch.  She was snooping on the kids’ online activity like a good mother and looked at the online profiles of my kids’ online playmates.  And for many of them, she noticed a common theme in their profile descriptions – something along the lines of:

I really like to make games, but no one likes them.

Instantly my heart sank when Svetlana told me this.  Gees – I know all too well what that feels like.  Somewhere out there is blistering review of my early Christian metal and it got to me bad.  So much so that I contemplated giving it up.  When I look back at school – not one of my English teachers, I think, would ever EVER recommend me to write for anything, save maybe one.  Now I am writing a blog, a book, and other stuff which I have had some positive feedback.

I really don’t know why the above trend in my kid’s friends on Scratch makes me sad.  One point is that other people can be so unfeeling towards others; we have through technology reduced other people to digital information through the screen and not realize there is a real person, flesh and blood with aspirations, who was the catalyst for that information.  Kids nowadays don’t relate to people as people but rather output from technology.

Another point is that people are no longer happy just to do what they do, but that they have to be accepted socially in what they do.  I know that this is not easy.  There is little tolerance for someone to do something with full passion and a poor result.  If you like doing it (and not destructive to yourself or others mind you!), what does it matter that others don’t like it?  Do it anyway.

A Scratch project our kids have been working on.

It could also be that kids just nowadays lack the patience to develop a skill or knowledge base.  You are not going to recreate Super Mario Brothers as your first Scratch project.  It takes time to learn the skills.  Oh, and although Scratch is meant for kids, I am sure that there are really experienced programmers (and probably not kids) out there on Scratch.  There is a Paper (i.e. 2D) Minecraft game on Scratch which is definitely not the work of elementary school kids (at least not normal ones).  But when comparing a simple game of “click on the cat” to something like Paper Minecraft, I wonder if kids don’t appreciate the journey it takes to develop the skills necessary to build an awesome program.

I think it boils down to this: you might like what you do – heck it might be natural – but that doesn’t mean that you are good at it.  At least not at first.  It takes practice even in the things that we are naturally drawn to in order to get better.

I hope that there will be some encouraging young Scratchers to pick up their comrades and goad them on to make better things.  But why stop at Scratch – we need this everywhere.

Until next time – I’m going to try to keep my lungs in my chest and work on some more posts and pictures for you all J

God bless,

Sven

Silence

For Lent I’m trying something new.  And for a true music-phile like myself, it might seem unconscionable but the rewards look like it is worth it.  And what is that?

I am retiring my mp3 player – no music for Lent.  Welll… not totally, but for the purposes of listening for no other reason than to listen; than to fill in negative aural space, I am retiring music.  For purposes of getting the last bit of my album together, sure, I’m going to be listening because I have to, but other than that – nope.

Why?  For silence.  Have you experienced true silence, where there is no noise?  It is a truly awesome experience, like drinking pure water, like watching stars on a pitch black night.  There is only purity, no noise, no distractions.

Our time is devoted to distractions.  Advertisements bombard our visual space all the time on the computer.  TV is a constant stream of noise between the frivolous programming and never-ending commercials.  Driving in the car is never in silence but always blaring music, news, advertisements – all perpetuating our social norms.  This has affected our eating where we are constantly grazing from morning to night.  Our social schedules are so busy and convoluted, that we only interact at the most superficial level through artificial means.  If we live an average modern existence, how often do we experience silence?  Aren’t we constantly cradled by modern man’s creation from morning to night, from cradle to grave?  What are we hiding from?

I conjecture that we are running from God.  In our modern world, all of our noise points to the finite, what is possible, what is tangible.  But in silence, there is the infinite.  Silently the universe expands and we begin to contemplate the eternal.  Without distractions, we are faced with the infinite depth of the creator as we stare across the great chasm of silence.

Hopefully by now you realize that silence by my definition is not the dictionary’s definition of silence.  It is not a mere lack of audio.  I am talking about how we as a society, as a race, continue to look to ourselves for fulfillment and further bolster this false reality that we are indomitable rather than looking beyond ourselves to a purpose other than our own self-referential goals; beyond our finite existence.  When we experience silence, I believe that we see that we are not completely finite as we believe that we are.  Maybe we are a part of that infinite silence.

So, I am hoping that by foregoing the distractions of music during the day that I might have my ears open to hear right at the edge of the underlying office chatter that the silence is beckoning me.

God bless,

Sven

So - 'bout time for an update?!

'ello all

Today is a good time as any to give you an update.  Partly because we are out of stock of blog posts and partly because I don't have enough brain cells to put together for a regular post.  We are all sick at the Edsson home.  All twenty kids are in various forms of sickness and the house is a very nasty place at the moment.  Don't you want me to bake you a casserole?

OK anyway, lets get going!

Music

Ah, I finished my latest Christian Metal album.  It sounds great, it looks great, and no one is lined up to listen to it.  Heck, I've given out free tracks on the silly thing and still....zero buzz.  But that's OK - in the weeks ahead I'll put some feelers out and try to get some news outlets to take notice.  We'll see, but I am far from fretting.  I feel that God gave me the gift of music, and I will use my gift of music for Him - and if it doesn't amount to much down here, I'm not worried.  I'm not doing it for fans anyway.  Kind of weird, but that is how I roll with my Christian music.

I did get the seed in my head to do a sequel to a previously released math oriented album.  I might kick it around some more - and that WILL be out there for money if it does happen.  Anyway...moving on.

Novel

I finished one novel earlier this year and started the rewriting process for an earlier novel.  Again, once I get them together and ready, this will be a possible source of income.  However, due to stuff with my music, I haven't had as much time to devote to the rewriting.  But that should change in the week ahead.

Drawing

Nothing formal.  Not yet.  I am kicking around the idea of a picture book for kids, but nothing really concrete at the moment.  It is at about the same stage as my sequel mathematics music album.

Jobbing

Ahhh - actually this is where the excitement has been.  I got a bonus and bump in pay because I am such a good little actuary.  That was good.  BUT, I have also been in talks with a company about a possible opportunity back in my homeland - Swedesbourg.  Obviously, not my real home, but I am looking at other opportunities as an actuary.

Why?  Because I can.  Well it is exciting looking at new opportunities.  I do want to get all twenty of my kids to get to know their grandparents and I am realizing that the position that I am in, albeit actuarial, is not a good fit.  My position is in essence holding the status quo and does not develop or build anything.  I recently made the realization that I like to build stuff.  So, with that in mind - I'm looking at other opportunities that would give me an opportunity to build stuff.  That might help quell some of the immediate need to run from my job into unjobbing.  Although I ultimately want to unjob, having a job that I like to do might make life a little easier to live.

OK - so I have all week to get you all a new blog post on Friday.  Until then - I hope you don't contract what I've got through the blog!

God bless,

Sven

Perfection: Knowing When to Stop

I am a perfectionist.  In fact, so much so that it took me twenty minutes to write this one sentence.  One time was too slow, another too fast.  One time it was too verbose and another was too simple.  I’m kidding about the twenty minutes (it actually took ten), but I am not kidding about being a perfectionist.

And I would not wish perfectionism on anyone.  Well, especially my worst enemy because, who would want an enemy that wanted to be perfect?  Ha – not this guy!  But besides my worst enemy, I still don’t think that I would wish it on anyone.  Why?  Well the thing is that being a perfectionist, does not make you perfect.  What happens is that you take yourself way too seriously and you only think that you are perfect.

As a perfectionist, I deep dive into making the smallest of details right in a work which often makes me forget the bigger picture.  Even if I keep the bigger picture in mind, the amount of energy that goes into making the smallest of bits correct can be exhausting with minimal reward.  I worked a ton to make sure that one little squiggle on that dude’s head was just right.  To be honest – how many people will notice?  I am so insulated within my own insecurities that I can’t objectively judge what is going on.

But it is not the striving for perfection that is bad per se – it is the shear amount of life being wasted trying to make something perfect that won’t be, and probably shouldn’t be.  As a writer, I admire Robert Ludlum.  I think that he is a fantastic writer.  I hope that one day that I can write as well as he did and have one of my novels approach the stature of even his lesser novels.  So, as I work on rewriting my first novel, I strive to make it the best that I can.  No – I strive to make it perfect and within my perfectionist self, I will not be 100% proud of it unless it is perfect.

Let me illustrate what it does to me – let’s say I am recording a song.  I’ll record it, mix it, master it, and give it a good listen and think that it is good.  That is when I first feel proud of what I’ve done.  Until, I listen to something else and hear how much better the writing, mixing, and just overall production was compared to my own.  This revelation leads to self-doubt.  Why should I even try – it’s pointless.  Eventually, I get the courage to rework the song and tweak a couple of things.  I’ll notice some improvements and start to feel better about the song – even proud.  Then I’ll listen to something else and realize that I was hopelessly wrong.  Then I rework it.  Each time I get closer and closer to what I think is perfection, but I never get to where I want it to be.  At a certain point I have to stop the reworking – either because I am getting close to a deadline, or I resolve myself to its imperfection.  But I’m not 100% proud of it.

I struggle with this on several fronts.  I am writing, I am doing music, I am blogging, I am drawing – all outside of my normal actuarial gig.  In each one of these, I feel woefully inadequate and strive to produce at the highest levels, but I never attain.  My inner perfectionist is torn to pieces that I can’t.

Thank goodness that now I’m realizing that I shouldn’t.

That is dangerous thinking though – or at least I think that it is.  If I shouldn’t, then why should I even try to produce anything of quality that reflects any skill?  Isn’t it good to strive to do the best that you can?  Well – yes, and I think that is the point.  I need to know my limitations and do my best and be content with that.  Not someone else's.

Should I be happy with mediocrity?  Should I be happy that I can’t write as well as Stephen King even though I am a writer?  Should I be happy with not being the best?  My inner perfectionist uses these questions to plague me and rob me of the pride that I should have in putting forth a good honest effort.

I fear that I will struggle with perfectionism for the rest of my life, but there is hope.  I am learning that I need to stop this cycle of self-doubt at a point and accept what I have done.  Yes, this perfectionistic drive can be helpful, but it can be devastating if I let it.  I need to learn when to let go of that drive.

And furthermore, I know in my head, perfectionism is not a place.  I’ll never be there.  It is a direction which I can work towards.  And – to be honest – in this journey of life, some of the most endearing and precious parts are imperfect.  Doesn’t art imitate life?  Shouldn’t some of the most endearing parts on my work be imperfections?

I still have a lot to learn…

God bless,

Sven

Doodles from the Cube, 6th ed.

Here for your viewing pleasure, another postcard I doodled a few months ago.