Earlier this year, I quit my job. This was a job that drained my life with its toxicity and work culture. Everyday I would log into my computer dreading all the emails, meetings, bullies, mind numbing (and often useless) tasks that never seemed to end. All I could think about was how terrible work was, how stuck I was in this situation, and how there was no way to end it.
I did not feel like myself. Normally I was creative, happy, optimistic, and quite resourceful and intelligent. So why am I here feeling like I can't take an active part in my own life? All I do is work, doom scroll, and my few hobbies fely like escapism and nothing else. It was hard to see any meaning anywhere.
Throughout unemployment, I had free time to do more of my hobbies though. At first, it was a lot of the same, playing cozy games to escape, scrolling mindelesly on Pinterest, recreating other people's work in Minecraft, rereading books I already knew I liked.
As I did this more, however, I started to think again. Think critically about what I'm consuming. Searching for themes and connections. Searching for meaning. I hadn't done that in a while. Then I came upon a video by Anna Howard titled 'creating a digital garden to end my doomscrolling'.
She really hit the nail on the head. In this day and age, the amount information we are exposed to is absurdly immense. There is NO WAY the human brain can process any of it in a meaningful way. This shallow consumption keeps us unable to think and create. But this is normal, right?
But it's not okay. I do not want to be complacent to the world around me because I am too tired to think, too sad to think, or just simply out of practice. Not only is it not okay, it doesn't even make sense. If I sit around and wait for the world to be just right, so that it becomes easier to think, I'll either die without ever thinking, or I'll wait until there is nothing worth thinking about.
And so I was set on creating a digital garden. But I wanted something more. I want to create art, and new ideas, and add to conversations. I wanted to ensure that I would never stop thinking and creating no matter what is going on around me. My digital garden had to grow into something else.
So here is my digital garden, here is my dreamscape.
The fullness of life is not a passive endeavor.
It must be cultivated through thoughtfulness and discipline.