Crap Art is a movement that seeks to “de-commodify” art, by urging a return to creative roots. The anti-elitist movement seeks to popularize to making “shitty” art. To give creative power back to the people. To cast out the gatekeepers and emphasize art as human expression, something inherent to everyone. Their website says it well:

The name is meant to sound honest and down-to-earth; to make you think, “I can make crap art!” perhaps. And you can! Anyone can participate in the movement, as long as the attempt is honest.

Art is a subject I both feel compelled to talk about and feel totally out of my element critiquing. Beyond the snide “art is subjective” that I often say, it really does feel inaccessible sometimes. Which is the entire point of this movement, started all the way back in the early 2000s. Those who try and make art status symbols of class and wealth miss the point. Art is the most egalitarian of pursuits, because it is a way to manifest in the physical world the slippery and formless emotions we harbor inside.

The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington D.C. has an exhibit of cave paintings. They note that children’s handprints may be the oldest example of art we have. Art literally is a part of our bodies.

I am, in a way, trying to participate in making “crap art”. Not intentionally, of course. But, like Ira Glass says, there is a gap between your taste and your ability. The work you produce doesn’t live up to your standards. I have read a lot of great writing. And I am trying to produce some myself. But I am still in the beginner gap. And the only prescription for that is more work, more deliberate practice.

That is the takeaway: deliberately practice by making crap art.

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Day 8 of #100DaysToOffload. Many of these recent posts have been kind of meta. Not sure what to make of it, just an observation.

As I mentioned earlier, I am starting off the new year with a rousing cabal of habits. I have done research on and off into habits and self-discipline. However, it hasn’t really ever stuck for me.

A popular writer in the habit field is James Clear, with his novel Atomic Habits. After skimming, and looking for various action points, I was left a little dissatisfied. I have run into the ideas of habit stacking, conditioning, etc. before. And I have tried them again and again. This year, I am trying something different.

While these techniques have undoubtedly worked for others, I have simply found no success with them. Whenever I focus on making something a “habit”, my brain immediately becomes viscerally disinterested in whatever it is. I tried this with yoga a year or so ago. I wanted to build a 30-day habit. But after 3 days, the thought of even unrolling the mat was too much. So I dropped it.

Around July of last year, I decided to try again with yoga, but this time was different. Before, yoga was decidedly a physical exercise that I went into with goals of increasing flexibility, easing pain, and getting stronger. However, this time, yoga was more centered around spirituality. In fact, I wrote down in a journal why behind why I wanted to do yoga. Maybe this is ridiculously obvious, but I had never sat down and worked out my actual motivations for the habit. Further, the motivations that I did have in the past were always shallow, often related to some vague goals of physical improvement or intellectual advancement. However, this time, I really wrote down exactly what I was hoping to gain and how yoga could help me in life.

Now, when I unroll the mat, it isn’t just to check a box. It is a chance to slow down, recenter myself, and practice physical gratitude for my body. The increased strength and flexibility are secondary benefits. There is a deeper, more human meaning that is affirmed every time I practice.

I think this is also why discipline is so off-putting to me. I don’t want to force myself to do things (reasonably, of course; sometimes it is unavoidable). For habits, I want to improve, I am now focused on actually searching for the deeper reasons that I hope to do them.

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This post is day 5 of the #100DaysToOffload challenge.

I am a big fan of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. It might seem cheesy, but I really enjoy the feeling of finding a word that encapsulates an experience. I have toyed with making poems out of them too, just to see what feelings arise. One word I have come back to a lot is adronitis.

In other words, I know we're going to be best friends, let's get into the good stuff!

Adronitis is feeling an instant connection when you meet a new person, but being dismayed about all of the formalities that need to occur before you can get to the more satisfying “meat” of the person. Their history, hopes, dreams, fears, pleasures.

A definition from TDOS is:

Adronitis (n.): frustration with how long it takes to get to know someone—spending the first few weeks chatting in their psychological entryway, with each subsequent conversation like entering a different anteroom, each a little closer to the center of the house—wishing instead that you could start there and work your way out, exchanging your deepest secrets first, before easing into casualness, until you’ve built up enough mystery over the years to ask them where they’re from, and what they do for a living.

I think the most obvious example is in meeting someone new, and feeling that gleeful little lump in your chest that they might understand the same weird things you do. And you want to jump into all the strangeness, but not so fast as to put them off. However, I have found that mentioning this fact (going meta) can speed up this waiting time.

I think this feeling can even cut across the animal kingdom. For example, if you get a new cat, they can be standoffish for a little bit. After a few days/weeks of constant feeding, they become a bit more cuddly and less skeptical (though it never seems to fully go away…).

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Day 4 of the #100DaysToOffload challenge. I am glad to be participating. However, this post was definitely not up to my internal standards. But, here it goes anyway!