[W59 - W64] A new form of ambition

I did a 3-day intensive training with one of my favorite dancers, Isidro. It was the most satisfying learning experience since the intensive study for chemistry olympiad in high school. The way I dance and think about dance changed so much.

Arjun asked me what made it so great, because I’ve attended many good dance classes. I couldn’t pinpoint one thing. Maybe the teacher was a master. Maybe I liked the way I showed up - 100% focused and pushing my ceiling? Maybe the feedback and drills were so on point that I saw myself visibly improve each day?

I could keep listing incredible things about Isidro, but we eventually agreed that greatness seeps through small incidents, like how they particularly perceived what the students didn’t understand, what was in the environment, right there and then, that could help explain things better.

But one thing struck me - Isidro and my chemistry professors needed more than pure will to be where they are today. Sure, there’s a level of ambition for “climbing the ladder” to be the head prof or choreographer for Doja Cat. But that alone is not enough to make them practice for hours every day in their bedroom. They truly love their craft. I could feel it as a student. The effect of that love is not only my improvement, but also a respect for their craft, and a desire to put in the hours self-studying like they did. To spend hours self-studying, to spend hours self-studying, to spend hours….

“How do you practice so much?”

A bubble burst after I read this practice log from my friend. I pursue mastery, to be great at some craft. To do that, I need to grow. To grow, I need to put in the hours.

But what if that’s the wrong causal inference? What if I cultivate the love for that craft that spending hours practicing is a natural desire that makes growth simply a by-product? Maybe even greatness is a by-product?

What does it even mean to cultivate a love for something?

*

I have a mania-prone personality. I can enter periods of zealous focus and perform excellently. Schools rewarded this behavior - it was a good thing to be a Type-A class president who participated in 10 extracurricular activities in high school and studied for 12 hours per day and still felt like I was not doing enough.

After the intensive, I danced with the same zeal. My half-asleep half-awake state was filled with choreographies. I’m now filled with the same kind of obsessive love for a craft that my teachers have. How great it was.

Except it wasn’t. As much as I love dance, I didn’t enjoy my consciousness being filled with dance and nothing else. I couldn’t perceive how I was feeling, how my friends were doing, or the little nice things on the street. It was a maniac state.

I slow down again, which is a bummer, cuz I probably won’t master dance anytime soon if I keep stopping like this. But it feels better, more regenerative when I close my eyes and dance very slowly, or dance with people in queer jam, or notice movements of those around me, or when I see this group of 3 boys making music with Citibike bells lol.

There is space in loving something for the maniac state with intense focus. But it’s the “cultivating” part I’m trying to learn. Like, how can I carve out the space and sun for things that feel good to reveal themselves and grow, instead of perking up only for intense butterfly feelings? What could our relationship look like if I didn’t follow the cultural script of “intense romance” or “drop everything to follow your passion”?

Right now, cultivating love looks like anxiety. When my teacher teared up, “I rebelled against my mom because I just know deep in my soul that I love to dance,” I burst out crying too. Not only because his openness touched me, but it also revealed how scary it is to admit that I love something, especially when that something doesn’t give you the certainty of a 6-figure salary. Now, I know that uncertainty is the price to pay if I am to structure my life around these creative practices. But that doesn’t mean the anxiety generated from that uncertainty isn’t crippling. Not numbing that uneasiness is what cultivating the love looks like right now.

This is a visual poetry project I’ve been cooking for a while.

This piece describes the psycho-somatic pain and catharsis experience. When I’m overwhelmed, it often feels like shoulder and head pain, along with a swelling sensation in my chest that I want to burst through. Since I can’t puncture my chest, I let the water out through other holes instead (tear duct ofc).

With the magic of web dev and design, I can poke my chest literally. I’m 1/4 way through (you can place where your somatic pain is in the body) and there’s a spinning water wheel in the chest as you add more pain in. Once you poke the water, an animation of water comes out. I feel quite experimental with this piece, from the ideation to the design to the technical approach, which makes it enjoyable.

Here is a demo video of what I have so far… still working on the water bursting. Thanks to all the folks from creativecodingnyc for helping me brainstorm what to do with the water texture.

A cool thing about showing up as a software engineer at a creative coding event is that everyone thought I was a god. Most of them are designers who are hardwired to be intimidated by coding (as if I’m not). But one of them humbled me

So I did my duty by studying design. Here are some things I’ve tried:

• I watched this lecture

It made me understand what Noah meant by techies focusing too much on tech but not design. This lecture starts with a simple sine wave, which isn’t cool. But this designer figured out how to multiply the waves, place them together, and lay them out so they tell such fascinating stories.

• I designed along with elliotisacoolguy and made some random posters

  • 

    

• another poster

  

  

• I plan to keep learning this way. Like picking a random poster and trying to recreate it. If someone wants to help me you can buy me this expensive book about the history of graphic design so I can practice hehe.

• My new set of ambition

  • Stay in New York cuz I’m learning so much from the creative world here

  • Make a living

  • Have enough time and mental space to work on my projects

  • Be around people who do their craft in a feel-good way

• does anyone know a good visual-web storyteller???? I wanna do cool stuff like that but limited by my technical skills

• how does a paid gig fit into your life? do u view it like a romantic partner (satisfy all your needs - intellectual, social, finance), or do you view it like a transaction? or a friend? so many ways to do life i wanna hear what u think.

This is the week #59-64 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!