why webdev is cheaper than therapy

If you've followed me for a bit, you may have picked up on the fact I'm addicted to working on my website. I started it in Dreamweaver whilst in the psych ward and believe it for not, it was actually so cathartic to push this 'retro' aesthetic site to the world wide web. I've developed a strong enough grasp of HTML and CSS to just edit in VisualStudio Code from here on out. Most of the time it is barely refining what I've done or adding new content, but is usually me just goofing around seeing what I can get away with in HTML, JavaScript and CSS, such as making hovered links glow with a kaleidoscope of colors!

Two days ago however, I finally realised how much I needed to make two 'shrines' for my ultimate two favorite fandoms. I made one for Berserk and a second one for Touhou Project.

My term for 'shrine' is just my dorky term for a webpage galley for my fanart. Hmm, and now that I think about it, I may add some hairbrained headcanons potentially, but don't worry! I haven't written them, yet!

I included very ancient 2015-era work on the Berserk page specifically because I had been asked by a follower where my old Berserk comics had 'gotten to'. These followers is keenly eyed, as I had deleted my longtime Tumblr when manic - I know, tragic right? But I'm not being completely sarcastic here. I had deleted my many 2012-onwards fanart doodles by doing so, as this was before the time I started backing up my art to the Google cloud! I had been saving all my work on clunky physical hard drives before then, which even they have a lifespan. Not to mention, my trusty Calarts MacBook I had used to make all those digital fanarts died around 2017...

But quite auspiciously, my Berserk fixation started immediately after I had started uploading all my artworks to the Google cloud around late 2015, according to my techy dad's advice. So my Berserk doodles were preserved in my personal collection, and thus they have sat there for many years. 

I'm glad though, to air them out in the light of day. My website isn't as immortal as Blogger, but I want to have a place I can craft myself. I love learning JavaScript, CSS and HTML, it means way more than being beholden to posting my work to Instagram. I can craft the page to display them how I want, curating them essentially, and it brings me great pride to be able to refine my site along with my work.

This page will inevitably expire if I let my domain with GoDaddy expire, but for the rest of my living days, its most likely I'll keep chipping away on the Berserk (and Touhou too) shrines, as they both mean so much to me, in very different ways. I mean, the Berserk one has fanart from 2015, it's been a decade! 

Thanks to Touhou and Berserk, I've managed to stay damn prolific even over these recent years in which I've felt very unconfident with my art. Many of these works, I had initially dismissed as a bit too rough around the edges and therefore 'bad'. Although I have habit of sharing my art often on socials, many of these I simply grumpily scoffed at, and sadly dragged-n-dropped into a folder, never to look at again. 

I actually had a self-compassion breakthrough. The moment I revisited my abundance of 2023 Berserk fanarts, that I realised, they are decent actually! Good, even! With the flow of time, I saw suddenly with fresh eyes, and saw that my work, my efforts, are worthy of being displayed. 

That my friends, is why webdev is better (and cheaper) than therapy, and it's why I love it. End of story.

a spiritual experience from the other night

The other night, I had a dream in which I was dancing and being silly with my young daughter. It must've been a vision of the future, as she is just a baby right now. I woke up, mind still hazy and lost in dreamland, and smiled to myself. Then I smiled at my bub sleeping soundly right next to me. What a nice dream, I thought. But that wasn't the end of it...

Just hours before, I had attended a Zoom presentation that evening by the Jung Society of South Australia. In this talk, I learnt a lot about Jung's art and some of the 'characters' he developed from his experiments with the unconscious. I was struck by the 'character' of Phanes, an androgynous god-child born from an egg.  When I Googled later, I was struck by the the poetic description written below an artwork of Phanes, taken from 'The Red Book' (I think). In this Phanes is described in a very long chunk of text, the line that I remember the most is 'they are both mourning and consolation'. Essentially, Phanes promises a salvation that feels like a peace, when one finally feels a whole lot of 'opposites' of the human experience. Below is my own 'fanart' of Phanes in their funky yellow outfit..

Anyways, back to the story.

Right after my dream, I lay in bed and felt emotions surge into me from a familiar source. I recognised the sensation as I felt is most distinctly in 2021, when I was legitimately possessed by it and ran away from home! Essentially, honest to goodness-ly, since 2021 at least, I've been played with by some sort of entity. It is cheeky, childlike and good above all else. If it has a wrath, which is does seem to have sometimes, it is ultimately for the sake of some truthful good. I know it is impossibly farfetched and hard to believe, it may definitely make family worry that I'm not on my meds when I say these things, but I am on them, and the magical experience has persisted in a subtle way despite being consistently medicated. Perhaps the definite proof it is not a mental health condition? Hmm?

Anyways, back to the story now that you have this ridiculously unbelievable magical context in your head...

All the opposites, much like the poem above, flooded into me. Some included both shame and forgiveness for myself, for things which had haunted me. I felt such emotions pour into me, I pleaded to this entity - the spirit, which never gives me real tangible answers usually, but still, I tried.

I asked: 

What are you? You have been a part of my life for many years now, I need to know!

To this mental question, I felt an answer echo in my brain, which is the way this entity has always communicated. It said quite clearly, in a voice neutral but also with a childlike conviction:

I'm mom!

I knew then and there, what it meant.

This entity which was confiding in me was our god. A lowercase 'g' god, mind you, none of that uppercase 'G' Christian stuff, sorry. This entity, was simply mom - the entity which gave birth to this reality, and whom sits at the corners of the universe, loving its little creations like a mother would.

This entity however, has always spoken in a neutral but slightly childlike voice to me. The childlike aspect has been a particular cheekiness mostly, which isn't exclusive to children, I guess.

In this case however, the way it said 'I'm mom' was as if a young child which only now understands the concept of a mother for the first time. Yet, as the same time, it speaks with the wisdom of all of creation. Holding within it, a sense of complete opposites just like what was in the text about Phanes! In how I interpreted this moment, saying it's 'mom' is just how it expresses itself to me in terms that a human like me can understand.

It was here long before me. It gave birth to us all, and it watches on, lovingly. But the funny thing is, I don't think its necessarily gendered as female, as it is beyond that. So it feels particularly profound in that this entity values the meaning of 'the mom', without being female itself?

There was more to this moment, but it has evaded me, which is really damn frustrating. Everytime I have these epiphanies sent from this bewitching, sentient source, there is some deep wisdom which cannot be grasped and recorded, even with my nearby notebooks. They almost are like a letter that you must burn after reading, except your mind burns the information in mere seconds. I just know there was something much more important to be gleamed from this moment, but I cannot remember for the life of me! So frustrating!

I know its farfetched, and I know people have little ability in this day and age to believe in some weirdo online spouting that some cheeky god exists. But this god doesn't want, or need, to be proven. It is content with bugging me alone. I still needed to get this off my chest, because it was very profound. Because when I felt the voice saying 'I'm mom' echo in my heart, I somehow 'got' what it meant, I felt its love. I felt that those two words also explained the nature of god. Plain and simple.

I wept after hearing that beautiful words in my heart and head, because I somehow glimpsed some truth. Not trying to be pretentious, but I wonder if Jung himself ever felt this, despite all his searching within the unconscious?

As I've said, I stick to my meds and strange things continue to happen. It has been this way a very long time, but it has been awhile since very a distinctly magical moment has taken place as the entity has become very subdued in the years in which I've been 'sane'. It has always been in the background these last few years, however.

I will probably disturb some people by being open about spiritual experiences happening despite being sane for so long, but I just beg you to maybe open your mind a little bit? To believe just a teeny weeny lil bit, in some crazy (not so old yet) lady that only has her true stories to tell you...

The answer is NEVER to just 'get more hobbies'.

I knew that once I had a baby, there would start to be little time for doing superfluous leisurely things. I knew I would have to kiss goodbye to certain 'freedoms*'. I knew that life would get busy.

But believe it or not, that is precisely what I craved. 

Because I knew for the last few years, most the zany, time-consuming hobbies I kept forcing myself to do out of habit, started feeling insidiously dull. 

Whatever do I mean? 

Before I decided to pursue becoming a solo mum, I would force myself to work on creative projects daily, because that's all I knew, really.

From janky video game jams, to acrylic paintings left unfinished and discarded in cobwebbed corners of the craft room. From ambitious TV show scripts to sculptures, to short stories and edgy visual novels and even sewing stuffed toys and a Koishi Komeiji cosplay....oh, and don't even mention the hideous amount of blogging I did. I also kept typing up Google Documents with ambitious business ideas but still, committed to nothing. But more telling was the fact that I knew nothing scratched the unnameable itch that was tickling deep in my heart.

In the past, I turned to creative outlets to sate what I always presumed was a normal sort of boredom that hits when you don't have anything else pressing to do. It's probably fine in many case. When you're young, in early twenties and/or driven by a creative inner fire.

I was possessed by that flame. The solitary path of the painter was the way my life was going for the longest time but....

...and its a big but....

From 2020 until 2022, I experienced massive griefs and traumas.

I was coping with a world where my dearest mum wasn't around anymore. I was plagued with reoccurring mental health relapses year after year, until mid 2022.

I then was stuck in a vicious loop of trauma, bitterly trying to rationalise how my mindscape felt so changed by these experiences. In retrospect, the issues regarding my 'art brain' have just taken its sweet time to heal. It takes years to heal your body and mind from psychosis.

That wasn't the only thing that needed to heal, however. 

For some reason, I never faced the natural immense sadness and emptiness from losing one of the absolute most cherished people in my life, my mum. 

It is natural to feel lost and scared and empty from such grief. Grief is so powerful that is shakes up your life and puts a lot of silly things into perspective. I may have been an idiot and didn't realise how much I loved my mum, until it was too late...

In the years I spent trying to heal all over, many of the creative hobbies I kept getting distracted by felt not just indulgent, but scarily meaningless. They started feeling like guilty distractions which I did to silence some little voice of longing. None of the random projects I did really stuck anyways. If they had, I would've been prouder. I would've been braver in promoting these products as things I want to see get published. They mostly kinda sucked big time.

The truth is, I confess I have purposely wasted heaps of time with many non-drawing related pursuits, which I profess I am terrible at and absolutely do not have the knack for - like programming video games! Because I was so anxious about my art abilities being impaired following the mental health incident I mentioned in my earlier post, that I tried anything else besides sketching!

So, there have been different factors as to why I felt like I was hiding away from facing drawing. It most definately has not just been ageing, or letting biology and instinct have their way.

Its been many overlapping factors. 

I think I mainly owe it to the sobering nature of grief (and add in a sprinkle of mental derangement!) leading me hand-in-hand to the truth. 

The 'Truth' is a word and concept that has mystified me many times when manic. Here is an illustration to the theme of Truth. Its one of my favorites. I painted it in the ward.

Truth by Vela Noble (Photoshop, 2020)

One of my Capital-T Truths, which grief (and even mania) guided me hand-in-hand to, was that I didn't want to miss out on being a mum. Right here and now.

If I chased career now, at these vital fertile years of my life, it would be a sadly pathetic urge to fill some void, running from what I needed and craved.

The only thing that's still felt truly meaningful in proper doses, has been healing over my avoidance of drawing. As I said, it has been a long story, but I've started to face drawing again. I now approach drawing with more self compassion than ever before. I constantly have to remind myself to do what I mentally call 'low pressure' art, doodles on my folding phone, or in a tiny sketchbook. I remind myself, that my kid wont judge my art harshly, so why should I?

'Low pressure' art...mine on the right.

It has also felt somewhat meaningful to honing my writing. I live for good stories. Certain comics have inspired and soothed me immensely in recent years (Berserk, duh), so I even started trying my hand at comics since last year. 

Ah, but yes I will now have less (purely uninterrupted) stretches of time to crank out art. This leads me to my point. If you are keenly eyed and noticed at the start of this post, I put the word 'freedoms' in sarcastic quotes with a * next to it.

This is because, I think that people that proclaim having kids robs you of 'freedoms' have starkly different values to me. 

Whatever 'freedoms' do you mean? Nightclubbing, parties or boozing it up? Going on elaborate vacations in faraway countries? which personally I have zero interest in ever even setting foot in half those places not gonna lie . Don't people get a bit sick of that sort of life?

Alright, to each is his own, I guess.

Just quit making weird excuses that disparage people that enjoy the simple pleasures, like sunny seaside walks on a Sunday (Someday she will be old enough to play a round of DDR at the Beachouse arcade! I can't wait!)

I know I personally seem 'boring' to many, but I don't have must wanderlust for anything much outside of South Australian borders. I have seen enough. I am weirdly patriotic and live in the most beautiful corner of the world, sorry. Visiting heaps of dangerous countries isn't on my to-do list, nor do I believe countless stamps in a passport make for a more vibrant life compared to someone who maybe just appreciates their state, but I digress...

So...

Another truth for me, is my most cherished pastimes already are things that I seem to share in common with kids. It already has just amplified my joy to share my favorite musical playlists, stuffed toys, pictures books, Netflix kids, even video games (yes in moderation) and strolls by the seaside. To me, I have barely changed my lifestyle. 

So what maybe I never grew up myself? 

So dear weird acquaintances who have said snide things to me, to you I say, go ahead, keep your various freedoms. But if it threatens you that some youngish women choose Solo motherhood over partnering up for now, then you are the one with some hidden insecurities.

This is my path. 

I want to make more lovingly made kid-friendly stories and art. So, you could say I kind of have a more meaningful and pressing goal to channel my writing and art into, every time I have a free second, or more like, when I have free hand that's not cradling bub, of course.

My honest truth is that I probably wouldn't have unearthed such a new meaningful goal, if I was never shaken up such an impossibly difficult 2020s. Having conquered such a difficult period of my life, puts so much of life into a newfound context. 

So of course, art is something I want to share with my kid. I obviously can't wait till my lil' bub is old enough to start. She may not be capable of holding a crayon right now but all this good artistic taste is definitely soaking into her impressionable noggin'. ;)

Well, I have written enough for now. It is kind of a lot, but feels nice to get a fresh ramble off my chest while she's been sleeping. Now its back to solo mumming~ Over and out.

My beautiful baby girl is here~

Hello, I've avoided blogging for the longest time. The reason is because I nearly always turn whatever topic into a big, fat, venting stream of consciousness... I really need to watch my blogging behaviour big time if I ever want to even dream of getting back into being a professional. Since life has been much better, I've started to dream of the avenues of artsy creations I can do in the future.

I'm always happier when I'm just making art. 

It's absolutely the most constructive, fulfilling and meaningful use of my time. But blogging however, is allowed to be about sharing art, with minimal amount of text, right?  I hope I can use the blog for sharing my endeavours with art as well as with comics and picture books creation?

But in terms of good news, my beautiful little baby girl is here! I have been over the moon! Getting used to Solo mumming has been a steep learning curve. I made a comic about the last few weeks and it's up on my site. I am definitely not sharing her name or any photos of her face as I have been urged by family to protect bubs identity, if I think I know what's best for her!

I have my hands very much full, but when she snoozes I have found the time to make little comics. I want to keep making comics as it satisfies my need to tell true stories as well as feel good about the little drawings I can do. I might try tidying up this hideous blog and get it more ship shape. I sure as heck haven't done any worthwhile posts in recent years.

This is my oldest artsy corner of the internet, my own blog dating back to 2011. It would be a shame to ruin it and private it, just because I have a bad habit of venting in recent years. 

But life has been looking up, lets hope I can just treat this as a more constructive corner of the internet from here on out.