The moon or the sixpence?

Imagining a loop of sitting up from the bed and laying down, you stare at this loop until you confuse the original order and the reason why.  The concept of time is disappearing, should be a good thing; otherwise, I will keep remembering the fact that I have been self-quarantining for ten months already.

Lots of struggles, waiting, worries.

10 p.m. on the way to a party turns into on the way to my kitchen and follow New York Times Cooking recipe to make Basque Burnt cheesecake for the rest of the week.

The pandemic taught me to be calm. Everyone is grasping the fact they believe in and act the way they accept. People who believe the Covid-19 is a conspiracy go out and join the mask-free parade. People who believe it is a scheme by the environment to eradicate human population stays in front of the news to count how many people have been taken away every day. 

I envy them, I jealous, because unlike those people who deeply convinced by the theory that the earth is flat and try to search the pieces of the truth to prove it. I am still reluctant to choose any fields and immerse myself in it.

I envy Frank Underwood from House of Cards. Yes, the badass politician, but he knows the rules of society and plays it well. We are nothing more or less than what we choose to reveal, is the moment we make a choice means we are giving up something?

Currently, I am jobless. I started working in a shoe brand which I admired in August. Then it occurs to me that they would not teach me anything. I left without hesitate that triggers me to think what exactly I hope myself to be in 10 years.

Since not going out anymore, my only contact with the whole world is through WI-FI. It just occurs to me that we are now living in an echo chamber that algorithm feeds us the information we already knew or believe. That says, we, as human beings are easier to get provoked, easier to buy a theory without any objective support, easier to believe the earth is flat.

Creatives are being pushed into a crucial position as we are the ones who interpret ideology, culture, history, social status quo and all other contexts in the world and translate them into all senses.

As the translator who is being empowered to influence the viewer’s thoughts and even, value, I get nervous by merely enduring any negligences of the details in my design, or only producing a superficial, good-looking embroidery. 

I get this sense of responsibility to find the ‘first principle’ of each matter that I am going to communicate. I feel like I am being responsible for the proper noun I am going to visualize.

I love how the visual editor of the New York Times, Tracy Ma, puts in one of her interviews with ItsNiceThat. “A valuable skill will be having a brain to know what a story is because ultimately you’re still presenting stories as a narrative form, you should be empathetic to think how a reader might come to this. Empathy is definitely a skill and muscle for designers to learn.” 

Are designers still at the level of being a maker? Adobe is developing a promising software that could generate animation with a few clicks from the users. American company Autodesk is producing a car that could allow cars to code by themselves to reach the human’s requirement. There’s still a lot for me to take in before I truly become a qualified creative. 

Well, I have been outlining this ambitious rainbow for more than an hour, and it is time to talk about something more practical, the SIP.

During these few months, I have taken a few freelance projects, for an agency, boutique store, and some start-up business. But still, haven’t got any intern opportunity that I would love to work. I have this student self-help project with Patricia, a designer and a friend that I admire. We are offering graphic and art direction collaboration with those students who are creatively producing their own products and need a visual identity.

We do this to against the fact that students are having a tough time on progressing in the industry since lots of job opportunities are asking for more than one year experience. So far, I enjoy being surrounded by creative intellectuals. I treasure the power of their knowledge, and I respect the spirit of meticulosity. I hope to soak with them. 

But still, I would love to sit down in some afternoon and to stare at the stroke of a font. ‘In me the tiger sniffs the rose.’ Yes, Sasson understood.

What is more important? The moon or the sixpence?

I am trying to find my answer through DPS. Perhaps the sixpence is my moon. 
Yuan