In the last post I shared an update about my philosophy journey, so I thought I should do one for my creative journey and overall life as well.

Routine

Life has been going really well for a while now. I have a nice routine going. I don’t follow it perfectly but I’ve learned to be okay with it. So I’m pretty chill throughout the day and focus on the present and ‘just starting’, instead of thinking about what I’ve missed.

I’ve noticed how momentum builds from day to day. I might only do a couple of things from my routine on one day, but that makes me feel good and I’m more likely to do more things the next day. Since last few weeks, I’ve been in a zone where I’m easily sticking to about 80% of the routine.

Creative

I’ve been working on my drawing. Here’s a still life I drew recently.

And some botanical sketching.

I started learning drawing in 2020 and even though I’ve only done it sporadically, with many months-long breaks in between, but all those little bits of practice and learning have added up and I’m quite happy with my current level and motivated to improve it further. With consistent practice, I should improve much faster now.

I’ve also gotten back into music. I try to do vocals and guitar exercises daily and then practice some covers. Writing work continues and now it seems like the hardest artform to me.

Side Project

Philosophy has really been revealed as my true passion. Along with the slow and steady learning, I’ve also started a side project. I call it A Story of Human Thought & Action. I am tracing the evolution of how humans have acted in the world and what they’ve thought and said about their actions and the world. I’ll be building it on a separate blog that you can check out here.

In the past I was so inconsistent with the main projects that I couldn’t even imagine doing any such side projects. It’s a great sign that I can attempt something like this now.

Life, The Universe, & Everything

In other news, I’ll turn 42 in two days time. It took maybe 20 years too long, but I’ve finally figured out life! (The Hitchhiker’s Guide was correct. 42 really is the answer!) I’ve applied my philosophy to my life and it’s been working really well.

This is my life now.

I am relaxed, not lost and pursuing things I’ve always wanted to pursue. Life is meaningless so there’s no point in comparing yourself to other people. This is how I want to live and I’m finally doing it. My focus is on living day to day, paying attention to what I’m doing, and ignoring things like international news, consumerist desires, endless content distractions.

I’m also not doing these things with the hope of achieving success one day, although this one is harder to implement honestly. But whenever I start worrying about success, I stop putting in the work, perhaps paralyzed by the fear of failure. So I try to focus instead on the process and achieving excellence in the workflow.

Success, if it comes, will be a side-effect. Because luck is such a big factor in success, you can’t guarantee it and trying to chase success can lead you down the “hustle culture grindset” route which I feel comes from a negative place of self-hatred that doesn’t work for me.

Right now, I’m not earning much and many people can crush themselves under that stress. From the point of view of my philosophy, money is just a tool for value exchange. You create value for the world and you get paid in money and you use it to get value from the world. I’m privileged enough to have a roof over my head and I’ve made the decision of not getting married and starting a family so I can afford to not worry about money too much.

If I stay consistent and keep improving, eventually, I should be able to earn some money from my art, even if I’m not successful in a traditional sense. All I have to do is keep my value consumption within my value creation. Either way, life is meaningless so it doesn’t matter how much I earn.

I still feel sadness, boredom, doubt, anger etc. I’m also not always happy. But most of the time I’m pretty equanimous. My philosophy doesn’t promise anything more. Just an honest understanding of the world and life. There’s nothing to do except have the experience you’re having. You can still try to improve your experience but don’t delay your happiness for some future state. Try to do your best and forget the rest.

That’s it for this update. Thanks for reading!