A Recent Update: Painting, writing, research and learning new skills.
Greetings and Salutations Everyone!,
Even though I usually like to maintain a consistent habit of writing blog posts that revolve around my paintings and drawings, today I thought I’d make an exception and write about what has been on my plate/mind/agenda these days.
Idealistically of course, if I could help it I would be painting all the time!
But simply due to the fact of impending reality, that just isn’t possible for the time being. With that being said, these past couple of months I have been finding myself having to stop, breathe, take a few steps back, and rethink the course of my intentions.
It is times like these where I remember the old Buddhist phrase “If you see the Buddha on the road, kill him!” signifying that no matter how much we attempt to understand or prepare for the future, it never unravels in such a way that we would expect. It’s always different.
While I can acknowledge that an axiom of this kind is wise and profound, personally I feel as though it creates even more confusion in that it creates more questions than it does to answer them. Ha! ;)
So before I go off on any more wild existential tangents, I wanted to talk about how that besides for still attempting to paint as much as I can, I have also been taking some introspective steps towards improving the quantity and quality of my writing abilities, catching up on some much needed reading (definitely not for pleasure), and learning some new skills.
One of the major highlights I would say is finally giving in and learning about day trading. It has been something that has fascinated me for quite some time now but before I felt that I never had enough time to learn and that it was significantly daunting.
I have been taking these online courses (Udemy) and perpetually absorbing youtube videos on the subject and I must say that I have found the subject to be very exhilarating!
Never would I have thought qualitative and quantitative analysis for example to be so absorbing!!
Just even learning the terminology, using exchange sites like Binance and finally learning to read those god forsaken candlestick charts I am beginning to feel more self empowered.
I mean after all, I had to ask myself that if I’m wanting to invest in my future with the use of crypto, I should learn how to use the tools of the trade right?
While being in the midst of this continual chainsaw juggling act of learning new skills, painting, writing, research and seeking better self promotion strategies I have to say that it has been thoroughly exhausting.
It really is like keeping my head above water...not that I’m complaining or anything!
I believe I am very confident that I CAN and HAVE the ability to achieve my ambitions, but it really has been a struggle to extract what’s between my ears and have it pour onto the page.
With that being said in no way do I want to advocate or justify an indulgence in some kind of cynical or pessimistic perspective, but to simply acknowledge that deep down I instinctively knew that there would be consequences with adapting to the learning curve and altering my daily routines.
With ultimately wanting to propel myself forward, as of lately I have caught myself painfully aware of the likely dangers of drowning in a vast sea of information while losing sight of my hierarchical set of ambitions.
It’s definitely a slippery slope!
I admit that I have caught myself often becoming locked into “eternal research mode”.
But as I can imagine how most people would think if they were in my shoes is that after attempting to execute or strategize a plan in order to achieve a goal, that after some time passes it is wise to stop and reexamine one’s course of action before deciding to continue.
Instances like these I find to be frequently confusing!
More often than not I can’t tell whether or not I have given myself enough time to see the results and to just keep pushing through, or that I am just spinning my wheels and I should regroup.
It is in times like these that I have found that one of the best ways to keep oneself from falling into this trap is to essentially become a two- legged Google search engine so to speak ;)
The more you focus on knowing how to ask the right questions, the more tools on your belt you have to work with!
..Wow...I have to say that this is officially the longest post I’ve ever written!!
I really appreciate all of my followers and readers that have endured all of my ramblings this far!
Thanks for reading Everyone!
-James Hansen
EMAIL: jameszenartist@yahoo.com