feelings

Finding a way to continue drawing after a three weeks rest.

Talking about how my father met my mother some one asked me why he was still in school when he was 28 yrs old. I never realized that but usually people finish with university when they are about 23 or 24. So during our Christmas diner I asked him about it.
He first answered that he was lazy but then told me that he has a problem with starting. He calls it his flywheel problem.
It takes him a lot of effort to start with something. But when he eventually does it takes little effort to keep going.

I knew immediately what he meant. I’ve been struggling with this problem all of my life. Only I never named it or even understood what the problem was. To me it always felt as though I hit a brick wall when I tried to start something new.
I would plan to do something. Often times something I do like. e.g. Reading a book about some subject that interested me.
But for some reason I would find it impossible to read the book. Every time I’d pick the book up to read it I would feel restless and after reading only a few sentences I would put the book down and start pacing.
Then the next time I would want to read the book I’d feel restless even before I picked the book up. In the end even looking at the book or thinking that I might read it would cause such a feeling of restlessness that I couldn’t sit down and read it.
In the end I usually concluded that I’d some how misunderstood myself and actually didn’t like the book.

Of course this was an even bigger problem when I tried to do things I didn’t like such as homework and housekeeping. There to I always thought that the feelings of restlessness had something to do with the task at hand.

About two years ago I read a little about thinking in pictures and that explained part of the problem.
(For some reason you’ll find more information about thinking in pictures when you’re reading about dyslexia then when reading about autism. It’s strange because most psychologists agree that thinking in pictures is a symptom of autism and not of dyslexia.)
Anyway one of the things I read was that people who think in pictures shouldn’t try to tell them self’s what they should do. Instead they should picture doing it.
People are often advised to picture the end result they want to reach. But for some one who thinks in pictures that is not enough. They should picture the process it will take to reach that end result.
Not only thinking of the clean house you want to have but also playing a movie of you getting out the vacuum and vacuuming the house.

For the last two years I’ve been trying this and although it works a lot better then just telling myself that I should do some thing I’m not completely satisfied.
My biggest problem is with the way I deal with drawing.
I like to draw. I like the results I’m having with drawing.
So it should be something I do a lot, but it isn’t.
The way I deal with drawing one could think that I actually hate it. That I consider it something of a chore and would want to do it as little as possible.

Until about 3 weeks ago I tried to spend about half an hour drawing every day. But I didn’t always succeed. There were a lot of could reasons not to draw.
On days I went training I didn’t draw because I was tiered. Some days I had to do a lot of household work. And other days there were other reasons.
All in all I didn’t draw that much.
The last two weeks before my holiday I was very tiered and didn’t draw and the first week of my holiday it was very cold and I didn’t draw.

I’ve just started my first drawing in three weeks and of course it’s the drawing I was planning to do three weeks ago. Quite a difficult perspective drawing.
Even before I put the first line on the paper I felt that feeling of restlessness which makes it almost impossible to sit still and draw.
I’ve been reacting in my usual manner. Drawing a little and then distracting myself with other activities. But it isn’t helping very much.
Writing this article is meant as one of the distracting activities but even now I’m feeling restless.

There’s one difference in the experience I have this time and the experience I had as a child.
Up till two years ago I never knew that I usually don’t recognize my feelings. The last two years I’ve been learning that I usually can figure out what the feeling is supposed to be even though I don’t actually feel it.

I’m getting the idea that this feeling isn’t meant to be a bad feeling. I don’t give in to the feeling but if I would I would probably be dancing with joy.
As I’m writing this I’m wondering why I don’t give in to this feeling?
Dancing with joy isn’t a bad thing to do. Who knows I could even have some fun with this feeling.

(Ten minutes of dancing)

(Ten minutes of drawing)

This was actually a very good idea. After dancing for a few minutes the feeling of restlessness was gone and I could draw for a few minutes. Of course it did come back. But I can always dance a little more.
This is a lot more useful then pacing my room.

{ Comments on this entry are closed }