So I've been enjoying writing posts for this blog, and I feel like it's been helping me make progress in addressing personal emotional issues as well as learning more about who I really am--both things I'd like to make a lot more progress on.
Because I also get a kick out of organizing complex information, I figured I could make it a regular thing to go back over all the posts I've made in a single month and overview what I've been writing about. It's a reminder of the progress I've already made, in addition to helping me structure what direction I go in the future.
Let's give it a shot, shall we?
To start off, I've already been keeping notes and organizing my posts according to what I feel are the general broader categories of this blog. The categories are similar to, but not quite the same as, what I listed as my interests in my introductory post: Creative expression, self-exploration, queerness, data analysis, love, and... ramen, apparently. I might change these categories in future summaries, depending on the actual direction the blog ends up taking. (Trying to leave myself open to change!)
Creative Expression
- Sep 4: On art and creativity
- Sep 9: Music!
- Sep 18: On negativity and positivity in art
- Sep 24: Art as therapy
- Sep 28: Providing answers through art
- Summary: I've been establishing how art is important to me as a means of expressing personal values, intentionally or otherwise. This in turn gets into the complexities of to what extent it can be beneficial or harmful for this very reason--it can be beneficial for helping someone show their love for something, or to help themselves or others deal with hard issues, but it can be harmful for allowing people to dwell on negative thoughts or actions, or actively control other people. How much art does this is always contextual to the specific creator or audience, and arguably, it's always both the bad and the good to at least some degree... but I still wish to be as conscious of it as I can be, and strengthen the positive over the negative as much as I'm able.
- In the future: In my most recent post, I worried about using art as a means of establishing some kind of objective ideal for a standard of living, when doing this is harmful... but I think as long as I focus on what makes sense to me, and emphasize to myself and others that I'm only talking about it from a personal perspective, it can limit the harm it does while strengthening the usefulness, since it allows my creations to be used as tools for others to explore themselves, rather than me using it as a tool to control them. To that end, perhaps I'll focus more on what art has been personally important to me, and why, rather than continue talking about it from this broader perspective.
Self-Exploration
- Aug 31: Oh hey I can post now
- Sep 1: Fursona! *crushes tarot card*
- Sep 6: Let's talk
- Sep 17: On the VN Flowers, and my self-image
- Summary: I started off summarizing my general interests and moods since I feel that's standard for an introduction, but then I gradually veered more towards exploring some deeper emotional issues that I have--some of which I still don't understand in full. I think I like socialization more than I thought I did, and I think I like video games less than I thought I did. Without getting too stressful for this post, I still struggle with social anxiety and feelings of low self-worth, and I'm not sure I'm fully honest with myself about what my interests are and how best to pursue them.
- In the future: Even if these posts are often sad and don't provide many answers, I think it's been helpful to me to write about these feelings on the blog. Giving myself permission to air my negative emotions helps me to be more accepting of myself (as covered in the "Art as Therapy" post)... and sometimes just the act of talking about it helps me stumble across solutions, too. So I'll continue to do my best to be open about everything I'm feeling in life, but I do hope I can find more opportunities to talk about personal passions, as well.
Queerness
- Aug 31: My position in the LGBTQ multiverse
- Sep 12: Thoughts on the romance genre, part 1/?
- Sep 22: On the nature(?) of gender
- Summary: After declaring my position as a queer lesbian transwoman, I went over my previous history of gender confusion was tied up in the confusion of how romantic relationships are commonly perceived to work, versus my own perception of them. Then I went into how, though it's useful to recognize where the concept of "gender" even came from (culturally speaking), it's wholly up to us how we change or develop it from here.
- In the future: Since I see my two primary interests as being "love" and "personal expression", both gender and sexuality are very important topics to me! Also, I've only been out to myself for a couple of years, and I'm still learning more about myself in this regard. So there's still a lot to explore here, and I'm not sure where to go next... But to fit in with my conclusion from the "creative expression" part, it's probably worth focusing on my own personal experiences, rather than lean too much into making generalizations. But, because I love analyzing vast amount of complex data, we'll see how long that idea lasts. Speaking of which...
Data Analysis
- Sep 3: *surrounds self with numbers* Ahhhh
- Sep 25: The music program
- Sep 30: End-of-month summary for September 2022 (yes, the post you're reading right now)
- Summary: I guess there's not much of a "conclusion" to draw for this category, since I expect most of these are just going to be examples of me doing data analysis. Doing it with music is a regular, ongoing thing for me, though.
- In the future: I will continue analyzing data at my personal whims. I may even start doing some top ten lists. People love those, right? People like me~
Love
- Sep 7: "Princess Flufflebutt is my girlfriend, and I love her very much."
- Sep 15: Thoughts on the romance genre, part 2
- Summary: The second post here is an establishment of what an ideal romantic relationship is to me, and my frustration with there not being more works that really explore what it's like to be in a relationship like that. The first post is just a declaration that I love my girlfriend, which continues to be true and I will continue saying it. I love my girlfriend!!
- In the future: Love is a very important topic to me, and I'd like to talk about it more than I have been. Maybe I'm more apprehensive than with the other topics, since I'm more worried about how to get it right? I'll try to figure out a way to talk about it in more detail, I'll try to prioritize it above other topics for a while (but my main priority will still be listening to my feelings and being true to them).
Ramen
- Sep 4: I love ramen!!
- Sep 16: Buldak!! aka fire noodle
- Summary: ...I like ramen. And I feel like Samyang's buldak series is an especially interesting food topic and personal challenge, so I talked about that a bit.
- In the future: I honestly wasn't expecting to have as many posts about ramen as I did about love and music, but I guess that's how much it's entered into my life at this point. I'm not actively going to try to make more posts on this topic... but it could happen. It does remind me I'd like to start cooking more at some point, buuut that's not high on my list of priorities if I'm being honest.
Summary Summary
Though it's my inclination to speak in generalities, I think it's healthier and more valuable to me on the whole to speak more on personal experiences instead (and ultimately more helpful to others in a roundabout way, too), so I'll try to focus on doing that. I'd also like to prioritize the topic of love more than I have been, and since that ties into the first bit, I'll probably be talking on that some more.
Well, making this post was fun for me, I hope it was fun for you, too!