i wonder if one should be questioning one’s choice of degree every time they try to get to work on an essay and realise they’re really struggling to find something to say or find the subject matter intellectually fascinating, not just intellectually manageable and a goddamn slog.
i’m supposedly good at art history, but it doesn’t come naturally. the only reason i’ve even been able to sustain good grades is not because i even really focus on the art: always, almost always, the socio-historical context it is set in. which is a good approach. but i always feel like i’m cheating, especially because the reason i do that is that i am fundamentally just not very good at pictorial/stylistic analysis. which, when you come down to it, is a very, very crucial component of art history, because you can talk about history and politics and social context until the sun goes down but there’s not really that much point unless you can eventually confidently relate it back to the art which one is purportedly talking about. oh right and every time i pick up an art history book i find it very hard to make connections between whatever it is it’s about. right now i would rather read 10 anthropology books than 1 art history book (and kind of am: Bestor’s book on Tsukiji is extremely fascinating, and it has absofuckinglutely nothing to do with any of my current essays.)
for someone who wanted to go to art school and do art and stuff, i’m not actually a very visual person. i’m still more at home in arbitrary combinations of these 26 letters of the alphabet, and maybe also, increasingly but very, very slowly, those of the kana.
and then i think about how i chose this, i chose to continue doing art history because i was good at it - or at least, my grades said i was. despite how i’m still finding that i don’t really like talking about art itself, and prefer the history, people, movements and processes that surround its production. and… well, that’s a damn terrible reason to continue doing something, but i figure if one is good at something it would be wise to stick it out. one does not have to love something to do it well.
maybe i’m just running away from everything. or just doing the hard thing and doing something i don’t love because i can. i make a decision and later decide i hate it. or regret it. or question myself again and again. always and again. even when it comes to things involving my heart: i am always questioning and doubting myself. when i come across random quotes on tumblr, sometimes i think, hell that resonates with me. quotes that talk about people just putting up with you because they don’t want to tell you they hate you. and i know that’s not true, but it’s very easy to drown in the self-hate.
and i’m just scared, scared i’ll be a failure. scared i already am. terrified that i don’t have any long-term goals in life to work towards. scared of letting myself down. because, frankly, no one else really expects that much of me. but i do, even if i say i don’t, and think that sometimes i don’t expect anything from myself: Second Thoughts say otherwise: i expect to be able to do well. but it’s like i’m actively dissuading myself from working to get better and succeed at something, like a game to see how much i can slack and procrastinate until panic kicks in and forces me to work desperately, an eternal game of Beat The Clock that something inside of me enjoys forcing me to play. it’s like a permanent gamble.
and also, bad time management. but sometimes it feels way more sinister than that.
ps. angie: thank you.
