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Having something to go back to, as a living record of your feelings and your time, can be really lovely— when you’re in a season where it feels like many days are bad days, you have a record, written in your hand, of good days. Keeping a diary is a good way to practice being in love with yourself, and being disciplined in an artistic practice, and writing beautifully about your life. If you want to read a diary that I think keeps an excellent log and has interesting things to say about the act of writing a diary, May Sarton’s “House By The Sea” is really beautiful; so is Sylvia Plath’s diary.
Feb 2, 2024
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I make photo albums of the polaroids I take of my friends, work, and travels. I love having a physical object that can bring back so many memories. Like many, reading the book The Artist's Way helped me find ways to connect to myself and my art. I adopted the practice of "Morning Pages" which is writing three pages in a journal stream of consciousness style to empty your mind of cluttered thoughts before you get into your day. This has helped my anxiety levels and enhanced my focus so much. I love reading them back after enough time has passed to reflect on what has worried me and remind myself that all things must pass.
Apr 26, 2023
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i know it's basic but keeping a daily journal has been one of the most grounding things in my life. you don't need to shell out $$$ on a travelers' notebook and a snazzy pen, but just repeating the daily act of physically writing your thoughts down is a wonderful thing. i keep a daily recollection/diary sort of thing along with a sort of freeform commonplace book where i jot down thoughts or lyric ideas or cool words i read and had to look up definitions of. it's nerd shit but the sort of positive affirming nerd shit that everyone needs at least a little bit of. also the amount of stuff you forget over the course of a week/month/year is astounding -- doing this is fun in part because you can read through your past entries (good and bad) again with fresh eyes.
Nov 1, 2024
"An active diary is proof of living — an instructor's manual made up on the fly."
Aug 21, 2024
Top Recs from @nadiyaelyse
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Firstly, I’m so sorry you’re feeling that way— that’s really crummy, and I’m sure that once you feel that way everything feels like confirmation of being unspecial. But in a very very real way, you might be bored with yourself because you know yourself so well— other people don’t know you. You could walk into a bar or a cafe or an event and you would be new to at least one person there. If you feel like you aren’t interesting conversationally, are you a good listener? In a very honest way, the people I’ve found hottest and most intriguing are always good listeners, and people who are quiet and incisive. It’s okay if you don’t talk on and on; a lot of “interesting” people are just filling space with noise. Noise is always briefly exciting or interesting, but that doesn’t mean it has substance or adds value. Trust me on this, I’m a performer and frankly so many nights I’m just making noise.
So first piece of advice is, approach yourself as if you were a stranger— look at everything about you like you’ve never ever seen it before, and start to notice what you like. Then build on those things. Like, it’s okay if you hate your clothes, but do you have one jacket/shirt/earring that you love? Wear that so much, and slowly look out for pieces that make you feel like the thing you love— it’s okay if it takes time, the outfits that make me feel dynamic are all cobbled together from stuff I found over years.
Then look at other people, what do you find interesting about them? I am a knockoff of every woman I ever thought was cool— my summer camp counselor, my gender studies TA from my first year of college, my mom, and literally everyone else. That’s okay though, mimicking what you like is a way of developing your taste, and you will put yourself together in a way that’s a little different and totally your own.
It’s okay if it takes time— sometimes we have seasons where we don’t like ourselves a ton, but they do pass, and who you will be in a year is a brand new person— you haven’t met them yet, and you might love them. Tiny practical advice? Go for walks; it’s good for your body, it releases endorphins, and it gives you a chance to people watch/observe nature. Read something small; it can be a single poem, or an essay, or a children’s book— I love Howl’s Moving Castle and if I’m feeling stuck in a rut I read that, even though it’s a children’s book. If reading isn’t your thing watch a movie or a TV episode, but whatever you consume, watch it and take notes, like you‘re a secret critic— note what you liked, whether it’s costumes or language or the vibe, and what you didn’t, and then you can find more things like it— that’s how you develop your own taste, and it’s a good way to develop language around art and media.
All critics and essayists and everyone whose job is to write interestingly about art started with shit they liked in middle school, and built on that to find their own language— you can do that too.
Sorry for the hugely long post, but I promise that you are more interesting than you give yourself credit for, and there are people in the world who will see that.
Feb 19, 2024
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This was really impactful for me; the analogy is, your life/your heart is a room (or an apartment, a space, etc) and relationships are all about inviting people into that room. Intimacy is letting them into the room and knowing that they might touch stuff, move furniture around, or change the way you’ve laid the room out. Transparency is letting people see the room, but keeping a glass between them and the space— they can see, but not touch. I think relationally we all have impulses toward transparency instead of intimacy, and it’s easy to say “I let you look at my room, that was intimacy,” while maintaining the glass that separates people from the room. Be intimate! Let people pick up the tchotchkes in your heart and move the furniture.
May 28, 2024
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I like to let my phone die— I often don’t charge it overnight, and try not to plug it in during the day. If you’re able to access work/school through only your laptop, let your phone die, or leave it on the plug in another room.
I also delete most apps from my phone for periods of weeks, and minimally use social media— if this works for you, it can feel very liberating, and makes me feel much less constantly accessible (which I think is a good thing).
Something that helps me is thinking about the flattening of correspondence; before social media, if you wanted to communicate to a friend, it was one-on-one— you might write a letter, or call, or email, but what you were doing was conversational and relational. When we use social media, we flatten a lot of individual relationships into one relationship between us and our “audience.” Instead of sharing a thought or comment intended for one person, and designed for them to reply and continue the correspondence, we put out press releases on our own lives: “this is what I had for breakfast,” “this is a meme about my mental health,” and we become part of a passive audience in our friend’s lives. We end up feeling like we’ve just seen our friends, because we’re “viewing” their lives, but actually apps leave us feeling very isolated and anti-social. Try deleting your most used social media apps, and also schedule a walk/movie night/coffee with a friend.
Outside of radical deletion, pick an audio book to listen to, and pair it with a hands on/tactile activity: you could load the dishwasher, or draw, or try embroidery.
Jul 29, 2024