I bought a paper shredder today

and I think it's just about the most cathartic purchase I have ever made.

I know the symbolism is kind of lame (I'm destroying that which is no longer relevant to my life wow how deep) but like, it just feels good man.

~~~

Life has been a little stagnant lately, and it's juuust getting to the point where I'm uncomfortable enough to take action.

I'm still in the same job, the same position in fact, that I've been in since I started at my current workplace nearly 4 years ago. I'm seeing people who started after I did move up and away into more exciting (or at least more permanent) roles. I've finished my degree, but there's precious little I can do with it. Not that I regret doing a Fine Art degree; they're just not practical.

But, there have been little shining steps of progress lately. I signed up to play in a pit for my second show this year - I played in Next to Normal a few months back, and I'll be doing Oklahoma! in September. I started taking dance classes again after about 5 years. Just this week I volunteered to write reviews & interviews for an Artist Run Initiative (ARI) in my city, and I'm participating in a group exhibition with a group of my fellow graduates from uni. Slowly, things are beginning to happen. And it's nice.

~~~

This is all in and around one big main project I've been wanting to do, and doing in very small parts for a little while now. My artistic tendency has always revolved around patterns, so I've been trying to hone my style and technique and (as wank as it sounds) 'find my (visual) voice', so to speak.

Basically, I want to sell things, with my patterns on them.

I don't know what things, and at this stage I don't really care too much. Well, I do. I should. But I care more about the patterns than anything else. The pattern is the product.

So I'm trying to basically not just hone my 'voice', but to create products, and market them, and sell them. I'm at the set-up phase now, where I'm figuring out how much it will all cost, and oh GOD it's depressing. It's going to take so long to get it all set up, then get the first few products up to start gathering capital to get everything up and running. But I mean, it's expensive.

My struggle though, truthfully, isn't so much gathering the capital, or figuring out what I need to do (I've been 'figuring it out' for a while now). It's doing it. The thought terrifies me. It shouldn't, but it does.

So I do all sorts of things trying to avoid doing it. I stream whole seasons on Netflix, I churn out more patterns, I take up more hobbies, I skilfully fill my hours with everything but what I know I need to be doing, and it's beginning to feel like an ulcer, an irritation that I can't stop picking at. But if I just did it, it would be underway and I could get to the next thing. Then I think about the next thing and start feeling terrified all over again, and justified in not starting at all. It's all too scary.

Seriously though, I can't go on like this.

So today I bought a paper shredder. And I'm getting rid of all the bits and pieces taking up the space that should be occupied by the more important things. And it feels good, man.