May was Mental Health Awareness Month and I wanted to highlight three creatives who’ve inspired me to make positive changes and helped me cope with the chaos this year has brought.
Balance
One of my main problems is I’m one of the laziest people I know. I have somewhat empirical data to back this because in the Big Five Personality Test, which I’m told has some psychological merit, I scored in the third percentile of conscientiousness.
Conscientiousness basically means how hard you work. So that essentially means I’m in the top three percent of lazy people.
This is exacerbated by working from home. I jump from Discord to YouTube to gaming to Twitter to YouTube and back to gaming again. Every time I get even the vaguest urge to work, I say one more game, one more video, one more episode. Then, it’s 2 AM, I say I’ll do it tomorrow, spend two more hours online, go to sleep, and start the cycle all over again.
So, how do we alleviate the problem?
Well, CGP Grey taught me something I heard once before: my environment plays a major role in my productivity.
The first time I heard this advice, I was watching a video showing people how to be productive. It recommended that whenever you need to work, you should change environments. Whether it be going to the library or just switching to a laptop, just find a way to separate your relaxation environment from your work environment.
The advice sounded reasonable, but I kind of shrugged it off.
Then, I heard it a second time.
CGP Grey essentially said to split your life into four equal parts: exercise, sleep, relaxation and creation.
Up until that point my life was pretty much 50 percent relaxation and 50 percent sleep.
I took his words to heart and did nothing.
But then I got a kick in the ass exactly a week later and the day after that I wanted to seriously pursue exercise. I decided to actually take CGP Grey’s words to heart this time and chose jogging as my preferred form of exercise.
Turns out he was right because the solution was just go outside 4Head.
I’m up to jogging 5Ks and doing 160 reps of bodyweight exercises two-out-of-three days. So now, my life is 25 percent sleep, 25 percent exercise and 50 percent relaxation.
Forgiveness
But we still have the problem of creativity.
If it’s clear, I’m not confident in most areas of my life. In fact, I generally view myself as a lazy, parasitic piece of shit.
Then, I started clinging to Dr. K for answers. I was hoping for him to offer redemption or maybe even tell me I wasn’t a piece of shit.
Nope.
He taught me I was a piece of shit… but that’s okay.
Dr. Alok Kanojia raised over $100,000 in May to fund a life coaching program among other things.
I just never thought of that. It’s just okay to be a trash bag. I mean, I guess bro.
It just never occurred to me that I’m worthy of love as is and didn’t need to make monumental changes to my life.
Then, in another video he said I don’t even need to stop being lazy.
Well, now we’re looking pretty good lads.
His advice was actually the opposite of what I thought: find a way to be as lazy as possible. Essentially, just frontload your work, whether it be at the start of your day or the start of your life, then when you’re done, you’re chilling!
So, basically forgive myself and frontload my work so I can be lazy and not feel bad about it.
You don’t have to tell me twice.
Anger
Both paintings are by Jake Herrera. They cover topics of injustice, this moreso than the Joker portrait.
In this path of exploration and forgiveness, I accidentally reinforced my empathy.
I’ve found myself asking more about others’ perspectives and motivations. I’ve found sympathy for many I never thought I could begin to understand.
Two exceptions would be white supremacists and police wearing riot gear while covering their badges to avoid retribution, one of the four pillars of the American criminal justice system. No, for those people, I just feel anger.
And they could have really good excuses. I’m sure many of them had horrible childhoods and were just following orders.
I don’t care.
If you advocate for police intentionally misusing weaponry to suppress a group of people in an attempt to anonymously hurt or kill because they feel like it, I’d like to invite you to spend a maximum of 20 years in a federal prison for violating Title 18 of U.S. Code § 373.
And that’s what George Floyd’s death boils down to.
This wasn’t some grandiose plot from Derek Chauvin and his friends. It could’ve been because Floyd offended him in some way or maybe because there was a crowd calling for Chauvin to stop. It could’ve been because Chauvin didn’t realize how much time had past and he wanted to harm, but not kill Floyd, which is second degree murder, not manslaughter by the way.
But what it really boils down to is Chauvin just felt like it. He had his hands in his pockets, not a care in the world and didn’t really feel like moving.
The three other officers didn't particularly feel like doing anything either.
“They’re supposed to hold each other accountable too,” artist Jake Herrera said. “‘Cause that’s how it was in the military. You know; we held everyone accountable.”
Herrera was in the US Airforce as a crew chief, someone responsible for maintaining and repairing aircraft. From his experience, top-down and bottom-up, everyone held each other accountable.
If one person is late or a tool is misplaced, it can hold up a line of jets even for something seemingly small. But if someone misplaces a wrench and it gets sucked into a turbine, now you’ve damaged and potentially destroyed a multi-million dollar piece of equipment.
And that’s just a wrench. Chauvin was asphyxiating Floyd for eight minutes and 46 seconds while no one stopped him. For three of those minutes, Floyd was unresponsive.
“I will never forget the anguish I saw in your face or the helplessness in your voice,” Herrera said in a Facebook post. “You were executed in broad [daylight] by “men” of the law. You were a victim of their abuse of power.”
The main theme of Herrera’s prescription was accountability in different forms, especially holding chiefs accountable as culture is top-down.
I think two easy, braindead laws which should have been implemented decades ago are banning rubber bullets and making it illegal for uniformed officers to cover their badge.
However, there are still rays of hope in this maddening situation.
The first is the Minneapolis Chief of Police fired all four officers within 24 hours which is remarkably fast. Secondly, there are protests in every state and many countries around the world. Thirdly, all four officers have been arrested and charged.
And finally, there have been incredible concessions made across the country, notably the Los Angeles mayor promising to cut $100 to $150 million in police funding and reinvest it “in black communities and communities of color.”
However, the fight isn’t remotely over and Herrera worries people will begin to lose interest and eventually forget.
“That’s why when I made the post with the actual picture itself, I wanted people to share it to keep the awareness, keep his image alive,” Herrera said. “Because a lot of times when stuff like this happens, the cops get acquitted, and nothing comes of it, and we forget about it.”
