365 Dreams: Diary from the Edge of Madness Week2: From Art History to Whatever the Hell This Is
From Art History to Whatever the Hell This Is
If I look back 12 or 13 years, it seems insane that I’d ever attempt something like this. But if I go further—back to the reckless days of my youth—this was the only logical outcome.
It started with a detour into an art academy, where I was promptly told I had “talent”—but not the right kind. “You’d be better suited for theory,” they said, or teaching. Creative work, apparently, was for someone else. So naturally, I did the most nonsensical thing possible: I threw myself headfirst into studying art history, the academic equivalent of a kamikaze mission.
To my surprise, I loved it. My Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees were a deep dive into subjects that genuinely fascinated me—an oasis after the mind-numbing idiocy of high school. For a while, I lived in a bubble of curiosity and intellectual indulgence, blissfully ignoring the inevitable reckoning with reality.
But that bubble burst, as bubbles always do. The specter of “what comes next” began gnawing at me, whispering questions I couldn’t answer. Armed with an art history degree, I stared into the abyss of my professional future and saw...nothing.
I knew two things: I didn’t want museums or galleries—those dusty, self-absorbed echo chambers filled with clichés and unbearable people. And I needed something new. Something bigger. So, like a fool rushing in, I plunged into the corporate world, chasing the illusion of stability.
Corporate Trauma and the Curse of Self-Responsibility
Fast-forward to now: everything I learned in the corporate world is actively sabotaging me.
Self-responsibility? Overwhelming. There are no KPIs to hit, no quarterly goals to chase, no brain-dead meeting feedback to prop up my ego. It’s just me, staring at a mountain of tasks with no roadmap and no safety net.
And then there’s the technical challenge of screen printing—a skill I desperately need but haven’t mastered. It’s a slow, frustrating climb up a learning curve that feels like the face of Everest. But it’s also non-negotiable. If I can’t print these damn shirts, the whole project collapses.
By next week, I’ll either have figured it out or burned something down in the process. Either way, I’ll keep clawing forward, as always, powered by chaos, and sheer stubbornness.
Unlearning the Corporate Poison
In a way, this project is an attempt to return to the idealism I had before the corporate machine chewed me up and spat me out. But shaking off years of conditioning is no easy feat.
Corporate life is like a drug—subtle and insidious. You don’t realize how deeply it’s warped your thinking until you try to quit. The addiction to profit-driven metrics, to external validation, to playing it safe—it runs deeper than I ever imagined.
Now, every step forward feels like detox: painful, messy, and utterly necessary. But I’m committed to this madness. I have to be. The alternative is stagnation, and that’s a far crueler fate than failure.
So, here we are: week two of 365 Dreams. It’s messy. It’s raw. It’s mine.
Until next time, remember: freedom is a bastard, and self-doubt is its enforcer.
See you next week—and don’t be an asshole.