The One with the Whales

Fun fact: if you search Wikipedia for "the one with the whales", it knows what you're talking about.

I've been thinking a lot lately about why it feels so bad to me to practice visual art. I don't think it's just because I'm not already good at it; I can practice lots of things I'm not already good at, like writing code in new languages. And while I've talked a lot with my therapist about the idea I was given at an early age – "don't do your best; either do it right or don't do it" – I don't think that's it either.

I have trouble writing (non-code, I mean, although I struggle to work on personal code projects too) these days, and I know I'm good at that. Part of it is that I'm distractable (although for the last week, medication has helped); if I'm sitting at a computer with an internet connection, I almost can't help but check websites and IMs.

For writing, that's a solvable problem; I can just disable the wi-fi on my browser and put my phone in Do Not Disturb mode. (I almost envy 20th-century writers who used typewriters and word processors, and I've thought about getting an old word processor myself.) For programming, it's a little less so; all of my reference material is online, and if I have a web browser open then the temptation to check is always there. (But there are browser plugins for that, although I'd like one that lets me pick sites to allow access to instead of picking ones to block.)

You'd think art would be even easier, since I don't need a web browser at all to use a pencil and paper, but I find that my art doesn't improve if I don't have some direction, at least at my current skill level, and so I need instruction and reference - and absent being able to join an art class, that means websites and videos. Which means my browser is open, which means... you know the drill.

Beyond that, I've put a lot of barriers in my own way. I'm drawing on a tablet, not physical media, so if I want to draw I have to make sure the iPad's charged, make sure the Pencil is charged, start up the drawing program, make sure I have disk space, load the instructional video I want to use...

Plus – and again, this is a problem entirely of my own making – I really don't like having people look over my shoulder while I write or draw (insecurity about my own abilities, and feeling like the centipede who was asked how he coordinated all his feet), and the only place I currently have to work is my desk out in the main body of the house, which was not a problem when I lived alone but makes me anxious now that my son has moved in.

All of this is solvable. I just haven't done it – because while I know solving these problems is productive, it feels to my lizard brain like busywork when I could be writing or drawing, and so I get self-recriminatory for not doing the things I want to do, and then I go and browse a few websites, and then...

Anyway. I promised you whales, so here you go: some colorless sperm whales sleeping vertically:

(They're not humpbacks, so Captain Kirk can't use them to save the planet in a few hundred years, but I figure they count.)