“Who in the world am I?” Ah, that's the great puzzle. - Alice in Wonderland

 I am behind a laptop screen again, not for work, not for school...This time--not even late at night, for pressing questions I googled during my deepest episodes of insomnia. Like Alice, I fell into rabbit holes with information accessible to me through encyclopedias, research engines, .orgs and .nets and .edus. How I stayed up so many nights researching words and meanings, histories and backgrounds, sciences and faiths, all to get to an understanding of the Self.

This time I am behind a laptop screen again not wanting to just research, but to also start my blogpost, where I can finally learn how to share my ideas. I can think back to a long time ago, maybe sometime during high school or even a little before, since the time I first thought about wanting to create a blogger. I shied away constantly, unready to express myself. I expressed myself through my art alright, and I even got myself to publish a book to finally share some of my thoughts. But a part of me keeps feeling as if my thoughts, ideas and ideals are spread across my paintings and writings, and that I haven't really talked about anything really. I feel at times my art masks my thoughts, and I have been gatekeeping my own words. 

Coming to create this blog-space has felt like a life-long journey. But with each passing day and each pressing moment, it's more and more on my mind to finally get to some actual work with my art. To talk about the process of creating--not just about the material things that go into the process, but the thought and emotions that go into it as well. To talk about life and the colors I see in it. By no means is this easy for me--to feel as if I am finally talking and sharing not just on an interpersonal level, but extending myself out to the world (especially this digital space that has become our world). This space has been borne out of a certain necessity for me. I finally feel ready to talk about what I think and how I perceive this world through my lens of art & philosophy. I have decided the best way for me to share my ideas is through art & philosophy because I am not interested in any argument for argument's sake. However, I am deeply interested in knowledge (primarily philosophy, art, psychology, history, religion, tradition, culture) encompassing my curiosities over time. 

The past two years I have seen my creative outlets come into fruition. I have been working on developing more paintings, hand painted objects (canvas, wood, ceramics), and I published my first book that I co-authored. In the heat of the moment a few weeks ago, during a very stressful night I stayed up building my website through google services. I bought my domain even longer ago, not too long just maybe some months ago. I had wanted to build my own website for quite some time now and I finally felt like my head could take on this challenge. But during this process I have had many of my own battles to pick and choose from, and many of my own demons to fight. While I was doing all of this, let me show you how I did it.

I listened to a lot of my favorite music. While I walked I listened to zen meditation sounds, while I worked my day job I listened to a focus meditation playlist that I found and I liked. While I painted I blasted Nirvana and some of my favorite rock songs and alternative bands. 

To occupy my mind I got back into reading, revisiting the poetry of Bukowski, Darwish, and Rumi. 

To find solace, read my favorite stoics and discovered the writings of a few more. 

For inspiration I looked at art works of Van Gogh, Dali, Picasso, Matisse, Freida, Monet, Klimt, Basquiat. 

I revisited, rediscovered, and created out of what I have known and experienced. 

Welcome to my INTELLECTUAL RAMBLINGS.