Josh's Thoughts for No-One to read.
Every time I finish a page, starting from no. 1
March 22 2023 - Page 12
God I love being outside. I'm not outside right now, but I was for a while last night. It is just so peaceful. It all feels so real, being surrounded by trees with the breeze blowing past you. Feels like I'm more connected to where I am actually living. I know I parrot this sentiment a lot in my blog but I can't emphasize it enough. Forgetting where we are (in a more nebulous sense, not actually your location) because we focus on where we might be going.
I modeled a bluebird yesterday. Enjoy it. Right now he just sits on branches. But tomorrow, he wonders, he considers, he lays down the brick for others to follow. I work hard to bring my mental vision to the table. It is so clear yet the path is hidden from me. I must put in all my effort to reach the goal.
March 14 2023 - Page 11
I wanted to do an update last week, just returned to the states. So this one is going to be pretty long. Spent some time in London. It was pretty mixed but it was still a fun experience. Not totally convinced it is a place I could see myself living, but who knows. Really enjoyed spending time in the countryside. Love to walk around a small town with no risk and getting purely lost. I also jump on that underground, run to the door thats closing! I could live on the train. I love watching the people on their way to whatever they are doing. So much is happening at all times. Life is going on everywhere and we don't realize it.
I have my first animation pretty much storyboarded. I'm going to keep progress posted here with some shots or teasers. I am pretty busy with schoolwork but it should really accelerate come mid-late April. Once my thesis is done I'm pretty much on the chill ride out.
Maybe I'll do a road trip afterwards. I haven't decided exactly where I would want to go but before I head back to Japan I want to see a bit more of America. Maybe northeast. Haven't been there just yet.
I'm going to make Japan a revolutionary experience for myself. It really is going to be the first page of part 2 of my life, mentally and career-wise. I don't mind barely making it, as long as I'm living something I love. I desire challenge!!! I think that's what a lot of people are missing in their life. Something to work on. Even if it is pointless advancement of your own mind is something to strive for, in any way you desire.
I desire to make my mind more aware. More present. More thoughtful. In some ways, the new language demands it. Nothing is ever just autopilot, its always something new and learned and challenging. It pushes me further and makes me more human in a lot of ways. Sometimes when the action is effortless it ceases to become part of living, it just becomes part of life. If that makes any sense. Making your brain work in many ways makes new connections and allows you to see more vividly. Would we prefer life to be a black screen with single colored boxes we travel to? And our only objective is to click these boxes and travel to the next one?
If it isn't evident what I'm doing, my smartphone is going on permanent off-mode. I'm preparing to be lost. I'm preparing to be confused. It's not something I am totally used to but I think that it will give me some new perspective on life, and this is the only time that I can really afford to just drop off the grid. Really my only point of social media will be on this website. I'm working on a new page where I post one image per day representing my travels, my thoughts, my efforts. Probably will not feature myself but just my environment. It will live in conjuction with this blog. You'll see it starting May 25. Hopefully I have the new homepage working by then.
February 21 2023 - Page 10
I've been feeling very good lately. Music can make me feel that way. I find something that just awakens the optimistic side of me, the side of me that loves myself. It's good. That's why I've been writing more here lately. I like to capture the moments I feel like this so I never forget them when I'm sad.
One dissapointing thing. I finally got my infobar XV in the mail and it turns out I can't install anything on it because the android version is too old. Whatever. It is still really pretty. I was pretty down when I learned I couldn't switch to it though. On to the next feature phone for me to try. Maybe since that one is going to be too boring I'll have to modify it somehow. I have some ideas.
The side UI on the updated website is still going to be an infobar (original or XV? I don't know) though. I have no limitations on this website so I should keep what I feel looks nice and fits me. Because that's what this website is, its the purest, most uncensored reflection of myself.
I have no limits here. And I'm proud of that and it makes me feel better. It makes me feel like someone, anyone is going to discover me for what I am and not for what I present myself as to the world. And I don't have to know them, that's ok. I just want someone to know.
Here is a picture that I took while I was in Japan. Going back soon.
February 19 2023 - Page 9
Out here sitting on the concourse about to read some papers. Not exactly psyched about that, but being outside makes me feel happy to be alive. Sometimes it feels good to smile. Never feel bad for smiling. Everyone who is upset at you is missing them.
I don't think people are bad by nature. But maybe they just haven't smiled in a while.
I've been dreaming about something lately. Maybe it will become a reality. Maybe it won't. I have to try it out though. Or I'll never forgive myself for depriving myself of a potential future. Whatever is supposed to happen will. Just erase the doubts and keep smiling no matter what happens. I just have to bathe in the sunshine and look at the skyline or the rolling hills. Take all what I left behind in. Sometimes we forget how beautiful the world around us is. Yet we fight and scream and take. In the name of what?
You know, I never really got it when people say "stop and smell the roses". Idioms such as that gain definitions that they don't really mean. Or they lose meaning. Your thoughts have to be authentic. Can't be simply summed up into a commonly used phrase. Because people already know what that phrase means and they are wrong. You have to explain it.
February 17 2023 - Page 8
Well, sorry if anyone was looking forward to the site update. My wrist injury has really prevented me from working too hard on this shit and its driving me insane. Hopefully I will be healed someday... Then I can reach my full potential. No major update, because I've been kind of ashamed to look here knowing I failed my timeline goal. But it will come. I haven't given up just yet.
January 26 2023 - Page 7
Save the date, January 31. That's the day I'm uploading the new background to the site. I'm really digging the concept so far and it is still going to be far from finished but I hope everyone who happens to click on the site is fucking with it. It's going to be mostly stable, with some moving parts but its really going to be a big scene with some minor animations. If I can get the animations done in time, that is. At some point I'm going to upload a soundtrack to the website, which the animation is going to be played in sync with.
Anyway, seeing is believing so hopefully it is live on the 31st. I'll archive this page of course, because every step in the journey is a valuable one.
January 15 2023 - Page 6
If there is anything I've discovered about myself over the past few months, it is that I love life not knowing. I love to discover. I love to find. I love to go into scenarios without any knowledge or understanding about what is going to happen. I cling onto my string of optimism in a frequently pessimistic world that things will turn out alright.
I find that one reason I'm not always compatible with others is the fact that not knowing makes many people uncomfortable. I thrive when I do not know because I want to LEARN! And then I hold onto that acquired knowledge dearly... if there is something that I like just as much as not knowing, it is slicing through the world using what I learned.
It feels so powerful, knowing the streets like the back of your hand. You don't need a map, you are a master of the roads.
January 9 2023 - Page 5
For anyone reading this who doesn't know me, I'm an electrical engineering student. The semester starts in a few days. I have a large paper and a giant presentation due in a week. I really found the wrong field man. Even though I make OK money by grad student standards, it is just not my line of work. Can't wait to graduate. After that I will truly begin my world exploration...
I'm returning to Japan after the break. Even though it isn't my home, the world and people over there make me feel at home. I'm sure a lot of people resent my existence when I'm there... But people do that now anyway. I already feel looked at by everyone that passes me by. Really no difference there. At least I have something interesting about myself.
Learning all of this CSS stuff is a long process. I'm thinking about making the front page into a filing cabinet built into the side of a concrete building, with some cool animations based on which section of the site you're going to. Of course, many will be empty. I also want a little phone on the side with some easter egg features and a music player that remains up on whatever page you're on. Blog, animation projects, drawing, etc. It's gonna be modeled after the infobar/infobar XV, my favorite phone ever.
I made a little sketch up of what I want it to look like, but I still need to ink it. I'll post that once it is done. Maybe next week. For now, you get a picture I took last summer when I was in the mountains. Beautiful, isn't it?
January 2 2023 - Page 4
I looked at my website statistics for the first time today. Seems like 108 people have clicked on it so far. That's a lot of eyes to read my nonsense...
Sometimes I look at it and feel almost cringy but I always convince myself not to feel that way. Because everything I write on here is a reflection of how I honestly feel when I write it. Is it corny? I don't know. But I can't allow myself to feel bad for allowing my mind to finally let something out rather than hold it in for the sake of societal norms. I made this website in the first place with that notion.
I have some dope ideas about how to reformat the site. This current formatting will be archived for the sake of history, but it really was only meant to be a placeholder until I figured out exactly what I wanted this place to look like. No spoilers yet! But its gonna be cool. Trying to figure out how to set up 3d models to just chill on the site. I've never done this website thing before so it's a lot of learning.
Might just upload literally everything I have ever done since I made this website. Every sketch and every sheet of practice. Most of it is junk, I've only been learning how to draw for a little while now. Who knows though, maybe some of it will be worth something to someone.
"We are so limited to thinking about only what is in our eyes at any given moment, rather than what our footsteps have left in the eyes of others." - The Railconductor That Guides Eri Through Her Trip
December 30 2022 - Page 3
I just want to talk about what my mind has been working on lately. I'm starting laying the groundwork for a short animated series based off of Hongkong by Monolake. That music really is magical. It is like I hear it and it fills my brain with a landscape, with movement, with atmosphere. I am going to try a totally different way of texturing the eyes and other small features, because I have a really specific way I want to portray emotion. Once I finish building some scenes I will post pictures of them here.
Honestly, so many of the scenes are already there in my head. I do not take for granted the visual way my mind works, especially as it comes to music. Whenever I hear a song, especially something ambient, my mind is flooded with landscapes, actions, lights, shots, ambiance, etc. I need to work hard to make these visualizations a reality, they deserve to be seen by someone other than me.
Shower thought, are they really real if no one sees them but me? I must make them real.
December 19 2022 - Page 2
Note: Short Entry, my hands are in pain
I'm laying on a couch in my friends house in Dallas Texas. I came here because. Why? I don't know. To do something, to see something, to feel something, forget about the bullshit I leave behind.
This kind of thing just works for me. I do without thinking and figure out along the way. It is this kind of adventure which drives me forward. Which gives me new life.
P.S. Automatic mahjong tables are the kind of thing technology was built for. They are moving, living, with so many elements. Yet they have an element of simplistic beauty.
November 28 2022 - Page 1
Today was the day I stop apologizing for myself. That's why I made this website, so I can practice.
Looking atthe page, I see success. My first set of full drawing on a page and it really turned out well. I am optimistic for the future of this. I love learning what works and doesn't work.
I fell in love with creation too late. My mind transporting to another world watching it build and destroy in milliseconds. It creates and improves at a million miles an hour. Faster than I can even dream of writing it. I could spend years in these worlds. And my mind can build them on the fly. As fast as I want. A pure expression of myself in a visual format.
Really, I want people to see it. feel it. smell it. live it for a moment even. That is what I am building. A new and lost world. Being lost is the only time we truly can live and find ourselves.
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Each week will be a page of created material. Foundations for the future. Maybe it won't just be a drawn page. Maybe a printed page. Or even a virtual page. The definition of page can vary.
