Tag / journaling

by Janet

Optimism

I thought I’d piggyback on my previous post (Naivety) so that I could bring some positivity back to the game. When I talked about naivety, I wasn’t expressing my beliefs (I don’t walk around angry) – I was simply pondering the word, it’s meaning, and what the word means to me.

That being said, it went a wee bit against my grain, which is normally optimistic. I actually think that naivety and optimism may have a few things in common, so this was the perfect “O” word for tonight.

Naivety appears to be the belief that people or things are good (or safe) – because the naïve individual is not aware that anything contrary to “good” exists. They lack experience.

Optimism, on the other hand, may be it’s more experienced counterpart. An optimist knows that bad exists, but he or she still believes that everything is (or will be) good. They believe this ‘in spite’ of the knowledge that bad things (or people) exist – not because they don’t have a clue. That’s where discernment comes in.

The definitions I found for optimism are “hopefulness and confidence about the future or the successful outcome of something,” and “the tendency to be hopeful and to emphasize or think of the good part in a situation rather than the bad part.”

So… it’s pretty clear that optimism is not naivety. It’s about being deliberate. I’m pretty sure no one ‘chooses’ to be naïve – it’s like something we’re born with… something that escapes us as we learn about the world. But optimism appears to be a choice.

Anyway, I did an illustration for my thoughts on Optimism and I think it’s… OK. (I wish I could be more optimistic about it!) It’s not what I saw in my head but it will have to do. Perhaps if the girl were smiling it might be more convincing. Haha!

Speaking of things not looking like what we imagined… I went to my first painting class last night. Don’t ask me how, but I ended up with a canvas that was covered in lime green. Sopping wet with way too much paint. Every time I painted something I didn’t like I just brushed over the whole canvas and blended the colors together. So I painted A LOT.

I realized, while in bed, that what happened was the result of using a large brush. Of course you can’t paint details with a big brush… what was I thinking?! I’m used to my keyboard and mouse… not brushes! I’ve been… well… very naïve when it comes to painting! Now I know that bad painting exists (haha!), so I’m looking forward to trying again next week.

I’m making my way through the Alphabet Game a lot quicker than I’d intended because it’s giving me time to think before I go back to telling stories. I need to ponder more ideas on that end… and I’ll talk about it more when I write about the “P” word… (SPOILER ALERT!!)

………… Plot.

That’s about all for now. Thank you for reading or viewing, I hope you enjoyed something here!

I’ll see you soon!

by Janet

Naivety

When I think about the “N” word, Naivety, I get a little pissed off. In my young adulthood (which lasted well into my ‘old’ adulthood), I would always get embarrassed when I thought about the times that I’d been naïve.

I’m pretty sure there have been MANY of those times, because my naivety existed longer than a lot of people my age – even though I did a pretty fair job at pretending (or actually believing) that I knew it all.

My illustration depicts – spot on – what naivety looks and feels like to me. Maybe another word for it is blind faith. Sitting in the middle of the lion’s mouth (or whatever beast that is) and believing that it’s a safe place. Believing that people are… “good.” When I say it like that, I actually sound kind of cynical, but then again – doesn’t that make sense? Because isn’t naivety sort of the opposite of cynical?

The definitions I found of naivety were: “lack of experience, wisdom, or judgement,” and “innocence or unsophistication.” So… when you’re naïve, you lack discernment. You walk right into trouble, or danger, because you lack experience and wisdom, and you have this naïve belief that everyone (or everything) is… “good.”

Cynical, on the other hand, is “believing that people are motivated purely by self-interest” and “distrustful of human sincerity or integrity.” Couldn’t you say that people become cynical because too many assholes took advantage of their naivety!?

That’s why I get mad. Naivety gets a bad rap. But when you think about it… it’s actually no different than the innocence of a child. Something that many people strive for, because with that comes real joy and creativity.

So… I think the lesson I’ve found in my thoughts tonight is that naivety is not something to be embarrassed about. If anyone should be embarrassed, it is the lions (or the beasts) who took it away.

That’s my two cents anyway.

Thank you for reading!

I hope you enjoyed my thoughts, or my illustration, and I’ll see you again soon for the letter “O.”

Peace & Love!

by Janet

Kaleidoscope Dreams

I thought that the letter “K” deserved a visual illustration rather than a story. Whenever I’m in the midst of feeling like things aren’t coming together perfectly, I step back and try to do something colorful. It’s a form of venting for me.

At first, when considering the Alphabet Game, I wanted to use the word Kumbaya. The problem I had was that there were so many different articles, meanings of, and thoughts about Kumbaya that my idea suddenly lost its luster. Then I had an idea for the barbershop series – a character named Kitty – but things were dragging on the story end.

It’s possible that I’ll come back to both of these ideas someday, or at least use the images that I made for both of them, but for the time being it seemed like a really good time to do an illustration for the word I settled on – Kaleidoscope.

My illustration is colorful and dreamlike, like a kaleidoscope. It’s funny that I always refer to my dreams as colorful though, because color is probably one thing that I never remember about my dreams.

Anyway, this began as a girl in a rather large, floppy hat. She is now doubly exposed, which makes sense because – according to Merriam-Webster – kaleidoscopes have two mirrors in them. Another dictionary defines kaleidoscope as a continually changing pattern of shapes and colors, which actually describes life – when you think about it.

I like to think of the illustration as something that represents how I see myself – because it’s difficult to define and label. I’ve spent time trying to do just that… define and label myself... and it was eye opening to realize that attempting to do so was not only counterproductive, but that the process itself can stifle, suffocate, and paralyze.

Like the kaleidoscope, we undergo constant change, and fluidity is the key – not definitions or labels. That’s what I finally realized, and I like that. I like it a lot.

So… I think that’s about all for now.

Thanks for coming by, I hope you enjoyed my illustration and my thoughts on the “K” word.

I’ll be back again soon… for the letter “L.”

Until then,

Peace & Love!