[W44-W58] No delulu but delusionally happy?

It all started with Hayao Miyazaki’s dream garden.

His last line surprised me: “If I had more money than I knew what to do with, I would be able to make a garden like this.”

It ignited a doodling train, “If I had more money than I knew what to do with, I would ….”

…make a dream wardrobe. I thought of a pair of pants designed specifically for me, catering to my activities only, which makes it 1. breezy for dance class, 2. gi-style for Jiu-Jitsu class, and 3. look cool (being cool is my daily activity too ✨). I thought this was very Bauhaus form-fit-function of me hohoho.

What I ended up with is less revolutionary than the Bauhaus school. It’s just another pair of baggy pants, but cinched waist, loose fit, high-waisted, dropped to my ankle, can change length at will, and has 4 pockets! The finishing was clean and professional. I got a lot of “where did you get the pants” from dance class and casually boasted “you can’t get it anywhere I made it 😎”

Sewing is a fascinating craft. It’s often associated with housewives yet requires the technical understanding of an Economics PhD and the patience of a Zen master. You can’t rush a sewing project - every hem needs serging, every folds need ironing, and every stitch requires pinning. Pattern drafting itself is a mind-blowing origami science of fabric. How do you conceptualize how 2 cm at the ankle will affect the shape around the hip? I now greatly respect those South and Southeast Asian children who work for shein h&m zara.

I learned Illustrator and designed a comic-style poster in my bedroom as a reminder not to drown in my phone every morning. Read more about my process here:

I started to see myself as capable of being detail-oriented after this poster and the pants. I hunched over for hours to make sure everything was pixel-perfect and stitch-seamless. Before, it was a lack in my personality that I need to make up for in other positive traits like …seeing the big picture 🫠. But I picked up an eye for details from these projects. It’s true what they say - you build yourself by building.

It takes so much time though. Even this simple comic took weeks. Going through the gruesome creating process makes me consume more mindfully and demurely 💅. Now that I know how much it takes to make a visual, time stretches whenever I look at an illustration. It’s like I got transported to their studio and felt how much thoughts go into making a little detail out of nothing. This poster helped me scroll less in multiple ways =).

Trailer:

Editing this documentary is the hardest thing I’ve done. There’re more dimensions to consider with video editing - you could just cut interview footage but you can also move audio around and do voice over a B-roll; adding a sound effect changes the tone completely; pace is set by not just what the character says but the motions in the frame or the background music. The magic lies in these little tricks, which require lots of trial and error. My favorite edit of the trailer, when Rhea burbs away the title card, happened by accident. I added the letters in manually without time-correcting, but it became cool after a playback. As a former straight-A, I was not wired to be THIS patient and experimental. I felt an urge for structure, a repertoire of amazing editing techniques and tricks, a storyline already in place, immediately! None of it was ready, of course, because this is a documentary. Editing is the process of finding out what the structure is. I was in a hot seat every time I edited.

But after sitting with the footage for months, something clicked. A structure came. I almost gave up but sticking with it for a while does its own kind of magic. I still feel uncomfortable every time I open Premier Pro. Hopefully by the time I finish this project that too will change.

I didn’t follow the delulu plan strictly but did lots of random studies on basics.

• typography

  

• basic hip hop dance techniques & freestyle foundations

  • I overlooked hiphop foundations but properly learning it improved my texture + freestyle game A+!!!

• illustrator 101

  • Here’s a good intro tutorial I followed

• writing bits

  • more curated drafts.

1. I CAN have ungranted confidence

   So I didn’t follow through with my delulu plan strictly. Part of it is right after I posted this, I got a part-time job, which makes it difficult to follow a full-time learning curriculum. The other part is …it didn’t feel right. This plan came from a desire to grow, but the fundamental drive was desperation. I rushed myself to get better, now, faster, to butthead my way to learning the way I was taught at school, which is through curriculum, structure, and punishment. But this made studies feel like a job - I could barely salvage any joy as I studied my first typographic assignment.

   So before I burn all my passion for learning away, I stopped the plan. I don’t want to repeat my tragic divorce with chemistry. I used to love chemistry so much it would wake me up when all other subjects sent me to sleep. But after 3 years of intense drilling to get to a “national excellence level,” I swore I’d never touch a chemistry book again.

   Fast forward a few months, I auditioned for this semi-pro crew in New York. I said I came for fun but it was still nerve-wrecking. There’s still a part of me that wants to rank first. If I don’t, how can I feel confident in dance classes? How can I leave the studio and feel like I’ve slayed? It’d the compliments I’ve received on my dance skills a lie.

   But before the audition performance started, I closed my eyes and said “it’s okay. You can be confident, Trang. You own this room and will absolutely slay. Even when you don’t have the audition result yet.” I jumped off the cliff and felt fabulous. I was confident I would pass the audition.

   But I didn’t.

   Doubts and embarrassment rushed in. “Should I not have felt confident then? It was so ungranted.”

   That question actually meant “Do I deserve to feel good without measuring where I am at?” Of course, logically the answer is yes. Even if I was trying to make a living out of dance, no is still a stupid answer. But emotionally, I believed it’s either feeling pressured or never growing. I couldn’t fathom how one does gain-no-pain.

   But the pain is self-ascribed. The pain comes from constantly being self-conscious of “how good am I?” This question is vague just enough that it hints at “not enough” but never offers a resolution. I’m learning not to let this question take the driving seat of my motivation for learning. And that I can feel confident, ungranted.

2. I already have everything I need to create

   One thing that New York has to offer is the concentration of talent. I saw all of them on a dance floor once, at Layerhythm, where legends gather to perform and the person dancing next to you might’ve just worked for Bruno Mars. They’re so cool that I thought every move they made would shoot out stars and I’d be spiritually transformed 💫. That happened, but they also goofed out with basic hip hop grooves. The next day, Yoe, one of the performers, posted about how dance teachers should do more battles, and do them with basic hip hop grooves. Something just clicked after that, the fact that I already have everything I need to create. I used to say “i can’t do this” or “i don’t have that equipment.” But a personal style is defined by what one can’t do as much as what they can. I can always keep learning, but it shouldn’t be the excuse to stop me from actually working on any projects my heart desires.

Lately, it’s been feeling so light when I do creative projects. So much that I’m afraid I might be delusional about how happy I am haha.

I seriously don’t know what my next step in life is, I just want to lean more into this feel-good-creative vibe, where I do hard things, but it feels easy on the heart.

• Does anyone know of creative coding opportunities/ people doing these kinds of things? The next natural step for me is to merge my visa requirement (a coding job) with my inclination for creativity and storytelling. So if you know of people doing these kinds of projects/ any opening opportunities, let me know!

• Have you ever done the gain-no-pain mode? Tell me how you do it! I need more examples of this to internalize it.

This is the week #58 update of my daily creative challenge, as outlined in the Re-manifesto of this blog. I’m inspired by MỞ - Mơ và Hỏi’s course, Writing On The Net 2 (#wotn2), and all my friends who write and create consistently!