Hello! I’m back from my semi-hiatus with a post and request for audience participation (I’m sure you’re thrilled). Seeing as there’s at least 32-33 of you who are following this blagh I’d like to get your story. What’s the story of you? What I mean by that is what personal experiences do you feel have made you who you are today. See, people fascinate me because what makes everyone tick is so vastly different for everyone and their life experiences can be the greatest in the world or they let the muck corrupt them. That’s pretty powerful. And our collection of experiences tends to shape us like a sculptor molding their clay or river going over a pebble and each time taking a jagged edge our bit by bit.
So, what’s your story? Who are you? And what are you made of? I’ll start by sharing three life experiences that shaped me and who I am.
1. My first experience with the dark-er side of my nature was in the 7th grade in middle school and what I was put a backpack of a kid that had been annoying me into the gym showers while everyone else was still in the gymnasium. I did this by telling the teacher I had to go to the bathroom and at the time it wasn’t planned. But I realized I was completely alone in the locker room which gave me an opportunity for some payback. To this day I still don’t completely know why I did it, but I did not like this other student and he annoyed me to the point that putting his book-bag under a shower head was a great idea. I knew that no one would notice it and I knew just where to put it that it couldn’t be seen before the showers were turned on.
I left the class completely satisfied with myself until word got out that it had happened and I knew there would be hell to pay in fessing up to it to the entire class. So I opted out the next time we were in gym and the whole class had to pay for it. Only a few people ever caught on that I did it and it was only a year after the event that they did and…surprisingly the group I sat with in the cafeteria was surprisingly okay with it saying, ‘I would’ve done the same thing as well.’ So…from that I learned my lesson: that’s not who I am.
I’m not the guy that does those kind of things and I felt horrible for having done it in the first place. In the end I can only plead temporary insanity and know that I’d never do something so underhanded again. That really was the pinnacle of my horrible actions until a couple more years later when I learned the value failure.
2. In life you’re rarely given a second chance and up until my 9th grade year I’d had two in the form of summer school. My 7th and 8th grade years I barely gave a shit about anything. Now, it’d be silly to blame the events that were happening at the time (my mother was really getting ready to split from my father the first time). Though I do think they may have played a tiny role. But that’s just a cop out, ‘Yeah, officer, I killed the bastard. But my parents were really the responsible ones because they were horrible people.’ I can’t really see either excuse holding up in court.
My 9th grade year I started at a new school I wasn’t really thrilled about and with people I wasn’t too thrilled to meet. I just wanted to go to the home I knew for years. Soo….I took every opportunity to skip class. My brother also didn’t help because he was the one I kept skipping with. Turns out they’re really not happy with you missing 34 days in one year (truancy court?). Yeah, I ended up in truancy court and because my father was oblivious because he went to work too early to see us off and since they were separated my mother didn’t know either until they were summoned there.
Honestly I felt mortified. I still feel mortified when I think about this and that I’m typing it up. I took advantage of everyone and I let my father down–I let me down. I didn’t think I was better than my actions, but I definitely was sliding further downward. This was a path I was headed on: the path to oblivion. To nothingness and I found myself not caring until I saw my actions and consequences laid bare. I saw that I hurt my family, that I hurt myself, that I was being an awful person.
And surprise surprise, no summer school this time. I actually had to own my failure. And own it I did. I ended up repeating the 9th grade, but I found that from that failure I could rise again and I started by actually caring about my future. I had steadily improved my grades, met some people I felt good about, and thanks to my tech ed teacher was recommended for a printing class which would influence me till today.
3. The third one is a quicky, mainly because it’s still ongoing. I originally started college as a psychology major because…why the fuck not? I like psychology and I like how the mind works and what it does to itself and what it can do to help and how it shapes us every day. This blagh sprung from my interest in psychology and finding out about myself. This passion does have its downsides, though (lots of tedium work to get to the prize (a career)) and I couldn’t handle it. I got bored with it and I summarily went adrift again but my teacher from my printing class did point out to me in one of my down moments: it’s all about passion and what you can do.
Sure, I had passion for psychology (still do) but I couldn’t put in the work; it was after my abnormal psychology class that killed my momentum. The professor was knowledgeable but made the work kind of dry and uninteresting (psychology is pretty dry most of the time). After that I swore to myself I’d take Human Growth And Development and if that didn’t re-light this spark I would change majors. Little did I know that the professor had just come from teaching kindergarten and you could tell by how she setup her class. After that I dropped her class and went into General Studies while I figured out what to do.
I settled on Publication Design as my major and never looked back. I was good at it and I loved it and it made me feel free. It also taught me the value of being vulnerable in my work. If you fail to be open about it then you’re going to be a bad designer. You have to be able to march into those classes and put it on display for the whole class to accept or reject and most of the time my work was accepted.
Aaaand…I haven’t designed anything a long time. I attribute it to many things, but most of all because I haven’t gotten any feedback and the big thing with feedback is that it kind of gives you this energy to keep pushing to keep molding until you get it right. I really miss that atmosphere, I wish I could go back to it to before I cracked to before I fucked up everything.
So…on that note: if you feel like participating then go ahead. I wholeheartedly encourage it. What are your successes? What are your failures? Have you ever failed so hard you thought you couldn’t come back from it? Tell me! Feed me Seymour!
