My complaining journal- top hits
2022-06-23
Prior to starting this blog, I wrote everything into a Trello board. 20 maxed out cards and counting, probably a short novels length (70k words maybe?). After revisiting them, here are a few that I’d like to archive here. Most of them are complaining, if you weren’t surprised.
On numbers
It’s such a shame that we reduce our emotion into numbers! Especially on social media when we discuss the quality of a piece, we bring up review scores, box office sales, number of awards, etc. And it’s not an exaggeration that studios actually use review scores as benchmarks when funding projects. What does the number 89 even mean? Come on you're not in school anymore, being given a rubric for every little thing you do. Go actually say something controversial, dare I say be personal with your opinions. I have no respect for smug moral realists who strive to look for unbiased objective goodness in art. No numbers when discussing art.
On university interviews
Students often solicit me into helping with a Uni school project interview. The usual “how did you get into the industry, any tips on how to get started etc”. First I’m a student just like you, so I don’t have any right to answer that and two, professors please compensate people into teaching your students, industry people are always available to helping other peers out, that does not mean we are a free resource to do your teaching. Bring in a guest speaker, do a workshop, beg the faculty to do anything with that mountain of tuition money to connect industry people with students.
On vision
We say dogs are color blind, and they can only see blues and oranges. But that assumes that we are un-blind from color, which a mantis can see more colors than us. So say dogs can see 30%, we can see 60%, mantis see 90% of the colors, then what is exactly the ceiling of 100% color perception? We could either be pretty good at seeing true colors or we’re completely blind, only having perception of 1% of the true perception of reality. Color is an illusion, objects are not colored but rather lights reflect and absorb rays and things look like they have color. So is the human perception incomplete in ways that we didn’t consider, and in theory if we were to see “everything” from UV, radiation, even the molecules of air, would we be so overwhelmed with information that we are practically blind? What does “true reality” look like, and is there a sweet spot of seeing a lot of things but not too much that the vision renders itself useless?
On social media
It’s so weird that people apologize for not posting often. What do you mean you should be bragging about it.
On my parents
I’m guilty to say that I’m not that best at expressing my thanks to my parents. But man they are genuinely amazing people. My father fighting his way out of poverty and working hard so I can live a good life, my mom raising me into a terrible gremlin. They weren’t too strict nor too lax, said no complaints when I said I wanted to pursue art, I’m sure they were worried for good reason. If anything I’m just happy I can reassure my parents that I’m independent and everything worked out fine. Love ya!
On grades
I never thought an environment where someone cannot afford to make mistakes is a good place to learn. Students are given two choices; take a risk and try out a new method or play it safe and stick to what you’re good at. If the institution emphasizes grades too much, their mind is too full of the anxiety whether if they’re going to pass or not. So they never take no opportunity to experiment and use the crucial point in their life where they should make all the mistakes they need to make to improve and better themselves. Otherwise they are constrained to comfort or much of their learnings go right over their heads because they only associate learning with trauma.
On blimps
As impractical as they were, blimps were fucking sick and I want to see them again.
On morality
Say a project takes 3-4 years, plus 1-2 years of preproduction. So that’s about 3 projects that I have ready, and by the time I finish them no vacation I’ll be 35. That’s terrifying no? Only 3 projects and I’m “middle aged”? Ernst Becker was right, facing morality is truly terrifying.