The Case for Drawing

Awhile back I mentioned how I started using the Freeform app on my phone to do small, “raw” drawings as a form of therapy. I had called this “visual journaling” at the time, but really, it’s just drawing…

When I first talked about it, I referred to it as just something I would do every now and then on the side, but recently, it has actually become my primary form of self-therapy. Lately, for reasons I don’t quite understand, I’ve been thinking a lot about what I would do if I were a kid again in certain scenarios, or what I’d do if I had a kid of my own, in said scenario. I could be wrong, but I think it’s my subconscious telling me to “connect” to my core child within, somehow, and since I used to draw practically all the time as kid, I figured that doing so again made sense. Also, some thoughts and feelings are just easier to express as images rather than words anyways…

Applications like the aforementioned Freeform make drawing on the spot easier than ever now. That said, I think using traditional means of drawing are perfectly fine too. In fact, I would even recommend just imagining drawings in one’s mind. Similar to the mental journaling I’ve talked about before, actually. Sometimes even just drawing and/or imaging a singular word or acronym can be enough to put oneself at ease in the moment, depending on the situation…

Now that I’ve been doing these Freeform drawings for awhile, I can admit that I’ve already forgotten what some of my own drawings were supposed to represent in the first place. I don’t really see this as an issue, though. As long as a drawing was able to help you get through a stressful situation back when said drawing was first made, it doesn’t matter if you then forget whatever the initial stress trigger was down the road. In fact, forgetting stress triggers is a good thing. And if those same triggers come back later on, just make new drawings…

I can also admit that all of my drawings look childish, but again, I don’t consider this a problem. It’s not like I’m planning to ever share any of these. Besides, the whole point of this exercise is to feel connected to the innocence of one’s youth, so having drawings that look rather childish is kind of the point. That said, if you have the talent to draw something that looks more “adult,” then by all means, go for it…

I should probably also take this opportunity to address the stigma associated with drawing. While said stigma does indeed exist, like most things, you just have to learn to not care about it. Again, a lot of this is about connecting back to childhood, and one of the good things about being a little kid is that, at that age, you don’t really give a fuck what anyone thinks (yet). In a lot of ways, our childhood is our “core.” The kid you once were is you in your purest form. This doesn’t mean to always be childish, mind you. There’s a time and a place for everything. I guess if the childhood logic doesn’t work for you, then another way of thinking about it is to remember that drawing is one of humanity’s oldest forms of self-expression and/or therapy, dating all the way to cave drawings…

As always, I hope my constant rambling about mental health on this blog is able to help someone, somehow…

Peace!

PS: Something I almost forgot to mention is that some humans apparently have a hard time “visualizing” things in their heads. For these people, I recommend sticking to journaling/poetry, or something like music, since that’s another one of humanity’s oldest artforms.

Lunch Meeting: A Sci-Fi Short Story

 LUNCH MEETING

Henry N. Silva

I sat at the restaurant in the airport, and not too long after, the stranger who contacted me had arrived, taking his seat across from mine…

STRANGER: Nice to finally meet you in person. Always been a big fan of your podcast.

ME: Thanks… Hey, I hope you don’t mind me asking, but is this actually gonna be worth it? I didn’t really have anywhere I needed to fly to, and this restaurant is after the security checkpoint, so I had to book a flight for no reason.

STRANGER: Yeah, sorry about that. I needed this conversation to happen somewhere unexpected. Your phone’s off, right?

ME: Yeah, phone’s off. So what’s this all about, then?

STRANGER: Well, I’ve been following your show for a long time, and all your UFO conspiracy talk, and I thought you deserved to know what I know.

ME: You… know stuff? Like what?

STRANGER: Well, I’ll start with this. Most accounts you hear about are BS. Even the ones accompanied by pics and videos are usually fake… But every now and then, a real one gets out there. Remember the one with the alien being interviewed?

ME: Yeah… That’s… That’s real?

STRANGER: It’s real.

ME: So that’s what they look like? Naked people with big heads and big eyes and human-like skin?

STRANGER: Yup. That’s why the one spotted in Brazil that one time was described the same way. Human-looking skin and all. That’s one of the other few cases that’s actually real.

ME: So why do they all look like that then?

STRANGER: So this is where it gets complicated… The aliens are not actually aliens.

ME: They’re inter-dimensional?

STRANGER: No, that’s not it either… Let me ask you something. If you had a Time Machine, where would you go?

ME: The future.

STRANGER: But the past too, right?

ME: Sure.

STRANGER: Would you go as far back as before humans existed? To observe pre-human species?

ME: Yeah, I’d probably wanna do that too, just for curiosity’s sake, and… Oh.

STRANGER: Yup… That’s what they are. That’s why they’re here. That’s why they don’t ever expose themselves publicly. Or try not to, at least. They’re just coming to visit and watch us like we’re zoo animals. They’re just interested in taking a quick look at their great great great great great grandparents… Add a few more greats… A few dozen more, actually…

ME: Umm… That explains the human skin, I guess… But why the big eyes and big bald heads? Why are they naked?!

STRANGER: Big head because they’re smart. Big eyes for wider vision range. It’s a genetic engineering thing. That’s why they’re naked too. They’re genetically-engineered to be able to heat their bodies from the inside out at will. The skin is genetically engineered to be more protective too. They don’t need clothes. And that’s why they don’t have muscles either. Why would you need to work out if your skin is already indestructible? Why worry about your health when all you need is chemicals and robotics to stay alive for practically as long as you could ever want?

ME: But why is the one in the interview video so short?

STRANGER: It’s a kid.

ME: Whoa… Does the super skin or whatever have something to do with why they’re hairless?

STRANGER: Now you’re getting it! Yeah, they see hair as just a vulnerability.

ME: Wow… I don’t know what to say… Wait, if they’re so healthy, then why is the one being interviewed sick?

STRANGER: He’s not sick. He’s stressed. Do you think he wanted to get caught by us? Evolved people in the future can have panic attacks too, you know… Oh, speaking of the interview, you notice how he isn’t actually moving his mouth or making any vocalizations, right?

ME: Yeah?

STRANGER: Also genetic engineering. They all have devices in their brain that let them talk without talking, and learn without learning… You don’t believe any of this, do you?

ME: Not at all, no.

STRANGER: Yeah, I knew you wouldn’t… But the next time you hear about some new development in robotics or genetic engineering or quantum physics on the news, just keep this conversation in mind…

ME: Uh…

STRANGER: Have you had a chance to look at the menu yet, by the way? Anything look good?

Related: Fiction Repository

More Tips for Mental Journaling

  Awhile back I wrote about a thing I like to call mental journaling, as an alternative to normal journaling. This is basically where you just simply imagine words in your mind, rather than actually writing or typing them out.

Since writing that post, I have had some new “revelations,” if you will, about the subject, and figured it was time for a follow-up post. With that, here you go:

5 minutes per day (alongside real journaling)

Over the last few months, I have come to realize that physical journaling and mental journaling each have their own unique set of pros and cons. For instance, physical journaling is great for keeping track of things numerically (in my case, the number of days since I started my diet), while setting aside specific time daily to practice mental journaling can help to reinforce that “muscle” in your brain, so to speak. That way, if you’re ever in a stressful situation and want to journal but can’t do so for real (out with friends, etc.), you’re better prepared to mentally journal instead, thanks to daily practice. Therefore, I feel it’s best to do BOTH forms of journaling daily. I usually get my physical journaling out of the way in the morning (I detailed that process here), and then set aside 5 minutes in the evening for mental journaling, and during this time, I make sure to avoid all other distractions (TV, music, phone, etc.) as much as possible.

“Rapid” mental journaling in loud situations

Unfortunately, some scenarios are gonna be so loud and stressful to the point where normal mental journaling will be difficult. For these cases, I’ve gotten into the habit of just doing very simple, “rapid” journaling in my head, where I just focus on one or a few words at a time and tell myself things like “fuuuuuck” or “god dammit” or whatever.

Same goes for flashbacks/ fits of anger

I find that the “rapid” mental journaling described right above can also be beneficial for bad flashbacks/ intrusive thoughts. I used to have a habit of screaming “fuck” really loud, or something to that effect, when a bad memory appears in my head out of nowhere, but thankfully this habit has been declining ever since I started mental journaling more, and specifically rapid mental journaling.

Vague formats

I said in my first mental journaling post that I sometimes like to imagine the words being typed out in a word processor in my head, while other times I like to imagine them being handwritten in cursive (since that’s what I do for physical journaling anyways). Lately, however, I’ve started to imagine the words in a “vague, wavy” sorta format. It’s hard to explain, really, but I felt the need to address this so that you’d know that it’s okay to use the limitless potential of your mind to imagine forms of wording that can’t really exist in reality. In fact, I’d almost recommend it above the more “realistic” forms of imagining the words, at this point.

Song lyrics

When all else fails, I like to also just simply sing songs in my head, and imagine the lyrics being typed out in my mind as I do.

…Well, once again, hopefully some of this helped at least someone.

Peace!

UPDATE: I just do mental journaling now, and use the reminders app on my phone to keep track of a few small things, but I still use notebooks for stream-of-consciousness stuff, and still do visual journaling now and then.

Related: List Repository