Panni Malekzadeh, Feelings

Today I took my meds in the morning which is making me feel like a happy drunk. Just a bit dizzy and also, I LOVE YOU GUYS. NO REALLY, YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND. I JUST, I LOVE YOU. YOU’RE MY BEST FRIENDS.

I’ve been having some feelings lately about the internet and my own creative process. Usually it goes a bit like this:

1. I love the internet. I get so many great ideas from tumblr & pinterest & twitter, especially.
2. I love making things! I wish I had more time to make things…
3. Maybe if my blog roll wasn’t so long I would have more time to make things…
4. But then I would miss out! On the great ideas! And art! And pals!
5. But if I make more stuff I can post about it on my blog! Which I love! Which is on the internet!

This week I absolutely had the feeling that I was obligated to stay caught up on my various internet subscriptions, even tho what I *really* wanted to do was work on the shawl I’m knitting. I read the blogs anyway! And enjoyed myself while I did it… in an agitated kind of way.

Workin’ on my Simmer Dim shawl… at work.

At this point, I easily consume hundreds of inspiring/interesting images per hour when I’m online. I bookmark, like, heart, or pin maybe ten or so of those. I plan to actually make or try one or two of those things. But even at that rate, I can’t make two sweaters in one day. I don’t have time to bake fancy cakes when I am working double shifts. The difference between the time it takes to actually make cool stuff and the time it takes to find cool stuff online is just staggering.

This post is a gentle reminder to myself to think about the process of creation involved in the media I consume. I scroll past so many things in a few seconds that would have taken days or months to make. I think that remembering this is one way to be respectful of the bloggers/designers/artists/crafters whose work I take time to follow (at the expense of my own creative process!).

But it should also remind me to be more reasonable in my expectations. I can’t possibly accomplish all the things I’m “planning on” doing at the same rate that these ideas appear online. Finishing everything on my mental to-do list will take years, regardless of what I see on Pinterest tomorrow. If I want to get more done creatively, I need to be conscientious about making time. Which might mean clicking “mark all as read” sometimes in my google reader. (The thought of that is making me shudder!)

Sometimes being online causes me to have unrealistic aspirations. Image by willbryantplz.

Julia has been talking a lot about Maranda Elizabeth’s zine Real Life: A Magical Guide to Getting Off the Internet. I would like to read it sometime too, (tho I won’t make promises to myself that I can’t keep about when “sometime” actually is.) I have no intention of *actually* getting off the internet… I love you, blogosphere! Julia’s post here about internet friendship is an amazing discussion about what it means to really connect online.  I’ve been writing a blog on some format or other since I was 12… which is over half of my life.

So excited to be finished this shawl… hopefully before it’s too hot to wear it.

It’s just… maybe tonight I will let my tumblr dash go unread so that I can do some knitting. And painting. And embroidering! You guys will still remember me if I take a break from being an ever-present internet sensation, right?