Class take away 13

    I talked about some of the things that scare me most, to people that I hardly know or really trust. Not only did I do that, I wore a costume that naturally gives people some sense of fear just looking at it. I feel like I took a lot of risks in class yesterday, but I just had a feeling as though I really needed to go through with it.

    I know that I couldn't actually walk into the school with the full costume on, because I did the same thing last semester (for extra credit in a class) and almost had the police called on me. I did not do anything wrong nor plan to, but my costume apparently gave off a suspicion that I was going to do something bad. So before entering class, I made sure to keep the mask off and went in as usual, talked with a few classmates and basically did normal stuff. I took my usual seat which is right in front of the door, and the majority of the class walked in before class started. When class was beginning and Jacob started talking about how we would present our Fear assignment, I put on the mask and assumed the different personality than I usually have in class. After the mask was on, I noticed some people were staring at me, one person took a picture, and it basically seemed as though nobody knew who I was. I remember thinking to myself, It's almost as though they never saw me walk through the door, even though I'm seated right in front of the door. After a bit of talking, Jacob asked if I wanted to start us off today, for a reason something like, "Because I'm definitely scared of you at the moment." He said it in a joking manner and I did find it funny, but I didn't laugh or even move in a way that would hint that I would. Plus, I felt like I wanted to go first just so I could be finished for it, talking about my fears isn't something I like to do.

    I began talking about my fears and how they affect my life, expectations, feelings, ect. I made sure to speak loud enough that everyone could hear me through my mask, it was kind of hard to keep doing consistently, but I made it through. I'm not sure if my voice sounded forced or not, but I did not try to make it sound that way. While I was answering questions from Jacob about certain things, a few people would laugh every now and then when I responded. I'm not quite sure how to take it; whether to think it was good to get a few laughs out of a very serious situation, or whether to think of it not to be good since I was being completely serious with my answers. I feel as though it may have been the way that I answered the questions, short and straight to the point without a pause in between them, but I really don't know. During the time I noted it, but didn't think anything of it until later when I took the mask off. When I was finished talking and describing how fears work in my life, the room seemed very silent. I kind of wondered why everyone was so quiet when I finished. Was it that I set the mood to be really serious and nobody wanted to add any input to it? I did mention that I normally don't like to talk much, but that I "put on" a different personality when I go out in public that would say otherwise. I didn't want that to be confused with anyone thinking that I don't like to make friends, I really do like making friends, but normally I'm very quiet and don't go out just to meet people. Whether this reason or another was behind everyone being silent, we were all silent for a while either way. Jacob asked who I was so that he could write down the name for some notes he was taking on everyone's assignment and mentioned that he did not know who I was while I had the mask on. I assume that most of the rest of the class did not know who I was either, despite it being my usual seat and that my seat is right in front of the door to class where everyone sees me at least once when they walk in or out.

    At the break in the middle of class, I took my mask off. The reason for keeping it on for half and off for another half was for a few reasons: one was to get a sense for the class while I was myself compared to how I normally see it, another was to see the different actions by my classmates while wearing the mask as opposed to not wearing it, and the last reason for it was because part of the mask was getting a bit tight and I wanted a break from it. There was a pretty big difference in how people acted in class with the mask on or off, mainly the number of looks I got while wearing it. It makes sense though, if someone wears a mask in a place where most people normally don't, the masked person tends to get a lot of looks or stares. None of it bothered me, but I did keep note of it. After my mask was off, my personality changed to how it normally is in class, and I went on listening to other students presentations while still paying attention to reactions. The conclusion, there were some initial reactions while I was taking the mask off, but after that there was nothing at all. It was probably because I became a normal person and nothing really interesting, but there was such a noticeable difference. It's as if I went from something to nobody. I do like wearing the mask, it kind of gives me a new perspective on things, which is something we try to do in Seeing Sideways.

    After it was all finished, I'm not quite sure what to think about the experience. It was kind of nice to get my fears out in a way of speaking, but I'm not sure if I really liked it overall. Granted, wearing a costume with a mask was the best part of the assignment, I'm not sure if I got any enjoyment talking about my fears. I think it's possibly a good idea to talk about them, but not to a class of people that I may or may not ever see again. This is just my opinion, and I'm sure it's great for some people to talk to strangers about, but I'm a bit less enthusiastic than that. It's a really good idea to have assignments where we can actually think about our fears and how they affect us, but I personally didn't get much enjoyment or feeling as though I had taken a burden off my shoulders after presenting it.

    Overall, parts of the class were enjoyable while others weren't, but I liked it.

Fear

What makes me fearful?

Let me begin instead with a few things that do not make me fearful. I don’t think I have any actual phobias anymore. I don’t really look at anything and feel an instant sense of fear and not wanting anything to do with it. I think that when I was younger I may have had arachnophobia, a fear of spiders, but I’ve had experiences since that time which would say that I’ve overcome it. Another thing I don’t fear is people. While I do occasionally fear what people may think of me or rejection, I don’t fear anyone for who they are or what they can do. This fear as well as the next could be faulty to a point that perhaps I do not fear them enough to be more cautious of them. I’m not a reckless person, and I do exercise caution, but I don’t let fear control what I decide to do. The next fear is the fear of death. This is one of the most common fears that people have, and it’s not as if I have nothing to live for, but that I’ve accepted that someday I will die, there’s no avoiding that. I also have to thank my religious beliefs for not fearing dying anymore, I believe that after I die, I’ll be going to a better place as long as I keep doing everything I can to be good. I’m definitely not in a rush to die, it will happen when it’s my time. I also believe that God expects certain things for me to do, along with keeping my beliefs, so while I don’t want to die until it’s my time, I don’t fear it either. I’ve had a few near death experiences in my lifetime, but I only feared the first one, and I have not feared it since.

            Refocusing back to what I do fear, first it’s a few common ones: Fears of failure, rejection, and maybe public speaking. I say maybe for public speaking because I don’t like to publicly speak, unless I have time to prepare for it. If I prepare for it in advance, the fear is gone. With the fear of failure, this is a pretty common one. I…Really… don’t want to fail in life. This is a hard fear for me to cope with, even harder than it was for me to stop fearing death. I don’t want to fail people who rely on me, I don’t want to fail God, I don’t want to fail while pursuing my dreams, there are just so many things that I’m very fearful about failing. I’m not only worried about failing whatever job I get into or ideas that I create, but I’m worried about failing to even reach that position. I want to write stories for visual mediums, the window of opportunity for getting a job in that field is smaller than one of my eyes, and probably even tougher to get into without connections. I actually freeze up sometimes when I think about how tough this choice might be, but I need to go for it. I know that trying to do this means that I’ll either make it or break down into nothing. I have a backup plan of studying 3D modeling and animation, but what if I fail that? Even if I pass through college with flying colors, but fail at getting a job or keeping it, I’ll basically fail everyone I’ve ever talked to or ever known, I might even fail God. I know failure is a necessary obstacle to reach success, but it brings up the question: How far can we fail before it gets out of hand?

            Rejection kind of goes hand in hand with failing to me: If I or my ideas are rejected, I’ve failed. I used to have another part of rejection that I feared, rejection from other people, but I’ve learned to get over that as time went on. While I do like being accepted by people, I don’t usually let that govern how I am as a person, though it kind of does. I don’t really like to talk unless it’s something that needs to be said. I feel as though I need to put on another personality while in public just to be at least half accepted by others. I don’t change either personality for people, but know that everyone has different opinions, and that it’s completely impossible to please everyone. The kind of rejection I really fear is having my ideas rejected outright. I have three main ideas that I want to spend a lot of time working on, two of which are extremely important to me. I can definitely think of other ideas for production, but if I can’t work on those ideas because they’ve been rejected, after all the time I’ll be spending to get into the business, I feel as though I will have completely failed again and I’ll truly be useless. A short side fear, the feeling of being completely useless. It’s not that great of a fear to me, but I just don’t want to be useless.

            These fears sometimes manifest as a blockade against me. They’re not phobias to me, but are more along the lines of anxiety and worries. I notice these fears in ways that just really get me down sometimes. I can be having a great day, but if I think about the problems that the future might hold, I definitely feel a sinking feeling. I do a good job to put on a mask to disguise the fact that I fear certain things, but the fact remains, I fear. Sometimes these feelings keep me from taking risks, I feel like I need to be so careful or risk doing something stupid and ruining my chances of ever succeeding in the pursuit of my ultimate goals. This kind of ties into how I am trying to learn to use these fears to my advantage; though sometimes, it’s hard to look at the bright side. I use these fears to keep myself in check of what I say and do, just to make sure that I don’t do something too risky or stupid. I also use it in a way that I know I need to try my best in everything my do, because there is a purpose for everything, and it’s because of that reason that I’ll always do my best wherever I can. I definitely feel as though fear affects my life in a creative sense, I feel as though I have to limit myself sometimes to stay realistic. As mentioned before, these fears take the form of a blockade. They can either be a blockade to protect me from certain choices, or the blockade that prevents me from moving forward.

            In the end, making a project about fear does in fact provoke all of these mentioned fears. Will it be rejected by the audience? The instructor? Will I completely fail it? Will I speak correctly while presenting my fears to a bunch of people in my class? Will the idea I made for the presentation scare the class? I don’t know the answers to any of these questions, but I feel like actually saying something about a topic like this could be beneficial to me as well. Believe me, I’m extremely worried about this assignment and I’m not sure how it’s going to work out. But like the fears I have with my ultimate goals, I just have to go forward and try my best.

    

Bliss

Ah, the Bliss exercise. How very nice it is, as well as how very nice it makes me feel. Having times where I am able to just play or think are so nice. I like playing video games and I like to just think about certain ideas of mine. During this block of time that we are to spend out of class, I’ll enjoy such a time of bliss in a time of really needing to do stuff for school, just a bit of a break would be nice. A few conditions that are needed to make sure I stay in a blissful mood are as follows: I need to not think about anything serious, have fun, do some good thinking about things I want to think about, and overall just stop feeling worried and anxious about stuff. I’m going to keep this rather short, since doing homework does not keep me blissful. I’ve never really heard of an assignment where we’re just supposed to take some time to do stuff that we want to do, so this was very refreshing and it’s pretty enjoyable.

After completing the Bliss exercise, I compiled some obstacles and “what if” questions to follow them up:

1.      I’m afraid of talking about my fears

a.       What if I find a reason(s) to dismiss my fears?

b.      What if I try to convince myself that it can be beneficial to talk about fears?

c.       What if I just went for it just to see how it goes this one time, then decide forever more if I’ll ever do it again?

2.      I’m afraid of talking too much about my fears when I actually do

a.       What if I just decide to say only what needs to be said?

b.      What if I plan out whatever items are needed and try to weed out any fluff?

3.      I feel like I need to be really careful about what I say

a.       What if I thought about the class as a safe(er) environment?

b.      What if I plan out what I’m going to say, as in a speech form?

c.       What if I just decide not to care about what I say? (not going to happen)

4.      I don’t really want people to know what my fears are

a.       What if I change the subject of my fears to something away from the deep ones?

b.      What if I be careful to not say too much during class?

5.      Normally I don’t really worry about what people think of me. But when it comes to talking about a subject like fears, I actually am worried about what people will think.

a.       What if I try to go back to a mindset where I don’t worry about it?

I know I’m short on questions, but I can’t think of anything else.

Class take away 11

    Today we did not have an assignment to turn in, so there were no presentations to make. It was nice to have a bit of a break for the week, especially since I had a pretty decent amount of work to do for my other classes. We started to talk about the Fear assignment that we'll have near the end of the semester. It's our big kahuna of projects. While talking about fear, we talked about the different types of fear, those being: Phobias, Anxiety, and Worry. It seems like there's a lot of fear out in the world right now, wars, potential wars, famine, just a lot of things for people to be scared of. Beth said something that I can honestly agree with, "Hope is in rare supply." Someday I hope that I can create things that will give hope to others in some way.  Fears do play a part in my life, but I'm not going to talk about that yet, that's being saved for the Fear assignment.

    We talked about apathy and how it's a growing problem that people have today. It's quite true. Some people say they'll do something, but then lose interest and make up an excuse not to do it. It's a really big problem with students especially. Personally, I only say I'll do something if I know I'll actually do it. It's a reason that I almost never make promises, I can't make a promise if I have any doubt that I won't be able to live up to it.

    After talking about the fear assignment and apathy, we started talking about a different assignment, the Bliss assignment. We will be taking about three hours out of a day (not divided up, it has to be all at once) and just do something that lets us feel bliss. A lot of the classmates were talking more about it and giving lots of input. One interesting thing that Beth brought up is that the overall atmosphere of the room was so much different from when we were talking about the Fear assignment to when we were talking about the Bliss assignment, that was very true. I didn't think of it while we were talking about the two, but looking back, there was a whole world of different in everyone's voice and demeanors in comparison.

    We looked up a video about Jiro's sushi, a movie in which a man living in Japan has been making nearly perfect sushi for decades. He has such a passion for it that he doesn't like holidays, because he'd rather be making sushi than taking a break. This video inspired me, and I hope that someday I can have about as much of a passion for making my own plans come to fruition like Jiro does, maybe not for as long, but if I enjoy it then why not.

    The class was pretty good, I look forward to the Bliss and Fear assignments.