Doodling

For as long as I can remember, as long as I have a pen or pencil on my hand and a piece of paper in front of me, I will definitely doodle. Whether this act is just a necessary impulse, or just a habit that I’ve grown into, it just happens. Anybody who has been my seatmate or has seen my notebooks and books throughout my schooling life from early elementary to college can attest that no page is safe from my doodling, sometimes it just takes up one small corner and other times it takes up whole spaces. I think it’s a sort of a release for me, a way to channel my focus into something else. I’ve always had a difficult time focusing on a certain task for long periods of time, I need something to distract and shift my attention to, I guess you could say I get bored easily.

I still doodle to this day, like I said earlier, a pen and a piece of paper, that’s all I need. I would say it’s something that became part of my life and it lead me to a path in my life which led me to where I am now. Let me further elaborate, during my early years of doodling, a lot of what I drew was influenced by comics which I read growing up. I read mostly Marvel and DC superhero stuff with some occassional manga like Dragon Ball. Of course back then I thought that I had enough talent to maybe pursue a career in drawing comics, that was before I realized that perhaps it wasn’t the best way to make a living. Money isn’t everything but growing up in a capitalist society and a family that put emphasis on business and making money, it’s not so easy to put passion over money. It’s a struggle that I have with myself until this very day, but more on this in the future.

From this dream of becoming a comicbook artist grew my love for the arts, particularly in the early years, graphic design. Now, this was something I thought I could really sink my teeth into, but at the time, I was past the midway into finishing my degree in Business Administration, and I just couldn’t push through with a resolve to shift courses and finally pursue something that I felt passionate about. I still tried to learn about it and with the help of the internet, I self-studied and actually was able to become decent with Photoshop, but the basics of art wasn’t there and it just fell apart from there.

If there was anything good that came out of learning more about design, I was exposed to a big variety of arts and it’s various mediums, and it’s something that I follow to this very day, in particular graffiti as well as pop art derived from different sources like album covers, magazine covers, promotional materials and the like.

And now I am back to where it began, I’m doing what I do best, doodling. Funny how things have come to a full circle or rectangle, whatever. I don’t regret much that I wasn’t able to pursue a career as a penciller or a graphic artists. Trying them out as possible careers, opened my mind up to so much more things and ideas, and basically a lot of who I am now and what I know myself to be now. It is the path that took me to where I am, perhaps if I took a different road earlier, I would still end up here, the most important thing is that this is who Jason is.

And with this parting, I share something I read in the Philosophy Zine which inspired this whole post. From a verse written by Naoyuki Inoue:

“The path you have taken has led you to where you are now. Who you are now creates the path from here on.“

The Kontra Philosophy

So I’ve been stuck here for over an hour, I don’t know what to write. I’m confused and my mind is in a mess. This is a perfect time.

You would think that being confused is the worst feeling ever and yet how can it be so perfect? I look at it in another way, it gives me time to reassess myself in life. I feel that working in the professional world has made me just another drone, another worker bee. It seems that our life is so mundane nowadays. After graduation, most would dream to land that their perfect job, while a few follow their passion, most of us do what general society expects of us. To try to land a good job with our oh-so fancy diplomas and education and try to earn as much as we can. We all dream to become rich, to acquire assets like houses and cars. We become like everybody else. LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE.

Gone are the days when people would have REAL pride in their work, now it seems like everything is just part of the job. It seemed better back in the day before corporations existed, when smaller shops existed. Sure, people weren’t as rich then, but at least they were happy. At least they lived on their own philosophies in life. Nowadays, it seems that most of the things we consider our own ideals and beliefs are simply jacked from the various media that surrounds us. We’ve become too accustomed to absorbing information at a fast rate that we fail to segregate the good from the crap. In a sense, we’ve failed in becoming individuals.

I’d actually like to take this time to reassess my life and how I want to live my life. Yes my life, not my career, although it would be great if I could do something that I love for the rest of my life. I’d like to map out what my philosophies in life really are. I thought I knew, I thought my groundwork was solid but something I read made me realize I didn’t know jack. Maybe try to step out of the comfort zone for a bit, take public transportation more often and just take in reality for what it is.

I’ve also thought that maybe driving in cars too much, makes us dull. Things has become too easy, too convenient. Driving usually makes us pass by the usual road, where we are used to. Creatures of habit, that’s us. Whereas when taking public transportation or even walking, you have a dearth of options available to you, where you want to pass is up to you. Most of us don’t have the patience for this though, we are too used to the fast life.

This is the city, baby, you can either play by the rules or get left behind.

Well ain’t that just a full load of bullshit. At the end of the day, whether you want to get swept along with the waves, it’s really up to you. Although swimming against the flow is ALWAYS more interesting, but it’s much tougher and not always accepted by the general public. Then again, who really cares what others think?

I hope that one day, I can achieve this. I want to become my own person, free from this Matrix life that we live, to live a life with passion and pride.

With that, I leave a few parting words from the immortal Beatles:

You say you want a revolution, well you know, we’d all want to change the world.