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On May 1st.
I spent a lot of time thinking about how my whole life has been about proving people wrong. I am not the type of person that people hold faith in, not since I was a child, nor in recent times. If there’s something that will mark 24 to me, it might be how mundane this casual cruelty has become to me: being completely unable to receive any type of sympathy, waking up with dread every single day, my hair falling out in clumps, proving myself in mundane tests, failing people who have been generous. Maybe this is the most crushing thing outside of the material cost of the world; I think it’s why I’ve grown particularly withdrawn, skeptical, and distrusting of people over the years. I don’t think my goal is to be that type of person (a subject worthy of belief)… but I’d like to be a believer. Not necessarily the type of belief that destroys the shell that I’ve rightfully drawn, but one that far deeper.
If there is anything I’d like to hold close this upcoming year, it is to be more faithful in all around me—perhaps so much so that it might be misconstrued as delusion. Yes—I’d like to be faithful.
24 felt like decades, but also strangely stagnant. I was thrusted into work with more agency, traveled more than I have in a long while (not truly for leisure–with the way my life is going, I don’t think I’ll have a real vacation until I’m 28), stretched my body with performances… defined more what I was walking towards. A few months ago, I was home again to show KAKAKOMPYUTER MO YAN at Art Fair, but I felt a bit sick coming back—like I had failed. It’s been strange and sinking ever since. At the same time, I’ve spent countless nights sick, delirious, loving the work, wanting to be excellent, believing in myself when no one else would… like this was knowing the world, and no one would take it away from me. Then, there were the few precious times also, where I could sit slowly with myself, and hear things pristinely, clearly; understand the smallness of my body but the wholeness of all I could have.
Less things matter; the few that do appear larger than life. I just had the biggest product release of my life (we launched Figma Sites, but still have much more to do)—I think it’s something I’ll look back at when I grow old, and see that I tried. I took a few days to breathe before throwing over a hundred sketches from the past year into a new work to screen at Tate on the 16th, and hope I get more time to build things that shape up to the thoughts and heart I have. Farther ahead? I’d like to get Developh to a meaningful place, start explorations for a potential company (!), continue developing my art practice with intensity & rigor to have a body of work, research, and thought to culminate in an exhibition (!!!!), be an excellent & sharp designer that knows what it takes to grow, handle some logistical woes with Visa/immigration status that have inhibited me for a few years, and continue with voracious, unfettered belief…