I should probably never get involved with politics because I can already imagine myself jumping off my podium and physically attacking people of the likes of John McCain and Sarah Palin. I was reading about his new ad in which he slanders Obama using the first line of a speech of his from September 2007 completely out of context. You can read about it here. It seems to me that the whole McCain campaign is based on slander and lying. Yet, funny enough, McCain’s main tactic is to call Obama a liar? I don’t get it, and guess what thousands of dumb people across America will believe it. At least Obama had the decency not to spread lies about McCain – at least not to this extent.
This morning has been filled with such thoughts and my film school writing portfolios. What stories will I write about? What inspires me? I’m very inspired by politics, stories about relationships, race and gender, etc. Yesterday I was stumped about what to write about so I worked on my visual portfolio. I got a lot done. I really got on a kick, so much so that I could barely sleep last night. I kept staring at my photos and manipulating them on photoshop and all the while realizing how much I missed this aspect of my life – my fascination with the visual arts. This was a part of myself that I abandoned so long ago, but that is still within me. For awhile I had doubted that, but last night I found that my mind definitely does still operate in this fashion.
Today I woke up, sleep deprived, and came up with several ideas for my writing portfolio. I imagine the most difficult part will be the personal essay. Though I write about myself often in journals, food reviews, and the like I don’t really enjoy writing about my achievements very much. I don’t know why that is. I have always hated writing personal essays.
My recent productivity has made me even happier than I was before. It’s hard to imagine that a year ago I was tipping on and off the heels of depression, and being swallowed by immense anxiety. So much of what used to hold me back, what made me feel boxed in, has been cut off from me. I do not know how it happened, but it began around the time I was fired from my job in July. I had never felt so free as I did that day, like I was finally no longer lieing to myself.
Most recently I have been obsessed with taking pictures. I bring my camera everywhere, photographing food, scenery, my new skinny self. Despite the fact that the economy is in a depression and these terrifying bigots might run the world I seem to be living on my own plane of existence and strangely enough I don’t think that the happiness I feel is derived from a delusional way of seeing the world, but rather through appreciation. As in the days when I realized I had recovered my worst depression some years ago, my first impulse is to practically kiss the ground thanking whoever that whatever dark cloud flew over me has finally dispersed. This time I knew it’s cause, and I knew that time would eventually free me from it’s grasp, but I am nonetheless thankful that I can once again be happy. I cherish this feeling.
