Personal sacred places, spaces, and things

I have always kept items and things that bring me any form of joy, peace, strength, hope, reflection or memories. I think maybe in a way we all do this, kinda like a little kid putting all his favorite stickers on his bed headboard; looking at all of them together brings on a certain emotional happiness. Lately in my life this has become a stronger obsession for me, it's like i'm bonding more with certain specific items and images and spaces. Colors and patterns now have personalities and emotions to them I've never felt before, things that are colorful and sparkle grab my attention, as if I am turning into a crow or something? Random environmental spaces allure me with their unique lighting and feeling. I'm finding myself highly grateful to little things like my pocket knife for it's daily useful purpose.
Why? I don't know. Did drinking for years dull my emotions and feelings? Probably... or is the collective consciousness transitioning into 5D as they are telling us? Probably as well. Who knows, I'm just getting weirder, and that's ok, it feels good and I don't give a shit. Currently, I am turning my bedroom slowly into my personal sacred space filled with things, images, colors, and moods that I resonate highly with. A personal museum to my inner peace, stickers on the headboard included.

Find your inner peace...

Easter 2024 - Peace

May this Easter Day bring you much peace, joy, & love!

Dreams are fucked up

I don't normally take naps, I don't like too. But just recently I started working a bit of some more physical work to offset all the time I spend behind the computer; a bit of Yin & Yang for the mind and body is my thinking. I'm way outta shape and I come home beat & dead tired. Today I got home and couldn't keep my eyes open, then crashed for about 2 hrs or so. Lately I have had the most fucked up dreams, and today was one of them. So intense and detailed you cannot tell if it's reality or not. I haven't had any alcohol in over 4 months so dreams are hitting hard core compared to basically passing out then just waking up oblivious to my sleep. I was so emotionally hit by this dream that I immediately wrote/sketched down all the details I could remember before I would forget (above, forgive my shitty spelling). I'm not gonna get into this dream itself, there was no ending build up or climatic punch. It was more of the intense detail and extreme emotions I felt during the dream; it fucks you up in the sense of what is real life or "reality". Of course, this is a common and timeless philosophical question, right? But one that is asked strongest right after the experience. I'm into all the spiritual, esoteric, ancient knowledge, hermetic principles, religious cultures and so on, a student always studying and reading everything I can wrap my head around. And, if we are not our body and are basically energy, all part of the collective conscience, a fragment of the all, or God; then what we dream is as "real" as when we are awake. When asleep, are we at certain points able to produce certain chemicals or emotions allowing us to experience or visit different realities or dimensions of our existence? Getting guidence to change or alter a life event? Or viewing our life as living on a different choice of the universe? Is what we call our waking life in the so called "here", just a dream to us somewhere else? Whatever the case, I think our dreams are just as real to our purpose of existence as our "awake" thinking and emotions. This is why we feel so emotionally confused when we wake up and try to make sense of them.

Art(ing) again

Drinking, rehab, hospitals. These things don't leave me much time or mindset to be creative or do what I want to do. I love to sketch, draw, paint, and make art of some kind. I've been outta my creative world for a while now, but the last few weeks I have jumped back into my creativity with a plague of passion. Soul on fire! Been taking a bunch of sketches and digital art I did while not drinking heavy and updating my artsy social media sites, which I never put the effort or passion into that I should have. Making myself really push and promote my work on a daily basis, as well as creating and being creative as often as possible.

I even opened a Redbubble shop where I can put my art and designs on t-shirts and other cool products and sell them. Been wanting to do this for a while and I finally have a few designs up and running. If you want to check out my shop you can view it here.

I'm not gonna win any awards for blog post titles but, I wanted to use the word "Arting". Wasn't sure if that was a word, doesn't matter I would have used it anyway, but I found a definition that said - verb /ɑː(r)ting/ 1. 'the action or skill of using art to become more powerful'

Wow, That's exactly what I'm trying to do.

All we have is now.

I am always trying to live in the moment... right here, right now. Very hard. 

Finding a job again

Covid times killed it all, right?

Well, I can't blame all thats going on in my life on covid... honestly it didn't really effect my life much at all except for giving me more time and anxiety to drink. But the one thing it really effected was my job.

I had a great job, I hated it, but it was a good job that paid well. As soon as Covid hit, myself as well as most of the company went on temporary layoff, the beginning of having nothing, no real work. Long story short, I went about a year and a half only doing small little assignments here or there. I was applying for other jobs during this time, also freelance stuff, because I didn't want to go back, I wanted a new job and a new start. But there was nothing but Covid.

I'm a designer, a creative...no one needed this type of work during a plague. 

As time went on and the world was saying, "Fuck all this, let's get back to normal," I still was not hired back to my current job nor getting any steady work from it. So I kept sending out applications and resumes to current job openings, but absolutely nothing. Am I too old? Is my work outdated? Or do I just suck at what I do? Still nothing.

Fast forward to about January of this year, I'm starting to again become an anxious, drunk, sloppy mess after getting my shit together a few times. So I pull it back together. My current employer now seems to be getting back on track. Work is slowly trickling in, people are now back in the studio working full time, and the big news is the company has been bought out by a giant worldwide creative group based out of England... Great, Right? Not so. They came in, took over, set their demanded rules, and now have a foothold in North America. I work in the Detroit office of the company and it was an employee mass exodus. All employees left except myself and 3 other people. My boss was fired and the physical Detroit studio shut down. Meanwhile, I'm drinking like a fish, not eating, and ended up back in the hospital and then rehab shortly after.

I ghosted.

Fast forward, forward... I have ghosted from this job. I'm in limbo with them. They are not reaching out probably because of medical reasons, and I have not reached back. This job was a huge stress in my life to begin with and certainly didn't help my drinking; and now everyone I worked with is gone, the office is gone, and the firm who controls it is across the Atlantic ocean.

This is a new start. A new me. Not drinking but still fighting not too, still with anxiety, still with a shit ton of problems, but needing to start fresh. My goal is to work for myself, I will one day soon but I need the starting capital for equipment and software.

Until then, I am continually searching for a current, awesome, and creative job. Don't get me wrong, a job is a job, there is always stress and problems, but my current situation is a toxic mess! So new start.

Of the billions of applications I have put out there with no luck, Ford Motor Company is one I have sent into a bunch of times for a bunch of creative positions, and always get a "sorry, no thanks" right off the bat. I was told a few times by a few different people that I would not even be considered without a degree, even with my years of experience. So, found this one today and figured I would give myself one last shot at Ford Motor Co. Please see my cover letter above.

Wish me luck!

If your interested, my portfolio: https://dougdutton.carbonmade.com/