1. decisions?
so here i am. having recently graduated from fine art at nottingham trent university, i have decided to throw myself into a new and completely unfamiliar city – maybe missing that initial buzz of exhilaration that comes with starting an adventure or journey such as university (and partly for kicks) i have chosen to dwell in the city of manchester for ten months.
the ability to problem solve, or at least know how to go about solving problems is one thing (possibly the most invaluable thing) I have learnt from university. i’m quite good at creating problems too, interestingly, but anyway.. this aside for now, the time has come to apply this to the (cringe at the cliché) “real-world”, where squeezing awkward full-time employment, voluntary work, writing, and still practicing as an artist feels almost like an impossibility.
after four days of living here I had gone out to a club with a friend of a friend and her crowd, worked at a Muse concert at Old Trafford, got a best friend from uni round for wine and catch ups, worked a few days at Whitworth art gallery and landed a full time job in a bar across the road. It felt good to be that busy, but extremely tiring. It was due to being completely alone (in my house and in the city) for the first week of living here that forced me to do so much and meet so many people. Being settled and in full-time work (now 3 weeks into the move), means I have to try, plan and generally be more prioritizing. What constitutes time well spent?
I have started to read On Friendship by Michel de Montaigne:
P29. “Vainglory and curiosity are the twin scourges of our souls. The former makes us stick our noses into everything: the latter forbids us to leave anything unresolved or undecided.”
It is healthy to be able to leave things undecided: up to fate (or some version of it) to guide us through life. I like this notion and with regards to Montaigne’s words, I would say I suffer from the latter rather than any excessive boastfulness or the like. But it’s not even an inability to leave anything unresolved that is the problem, but rather the inability to actually resolve things that is where the frustration lies because if we could go through life curious yet resolving and deciding on everything as we go… well, I don’t think I would have a problem with that. Decision-making is proving a common annoyance for me at the moment. Not little things- it’s easy to quickly weigh up pros and cons of a day-to-day problem, or act on a gut instinct when it comes to something trivial. I’m talking 2, 3, 4 year plans and the post-uni pressure of feeling that I have to select from a colossal hat of exciting things I would love to do in life. And I don’t think I want to. Or do I? This is exactly what I mean…
