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wander! the diary #1

dai 3 Comments

hi everyone (•̀ᴗ•́)و ̑̑ my name is dai / 戴丽 (they/TA) and welcome to my series! i was previously an arts, ink. columnist as a freshman, and have just returned to arts, ink as a (much more experienced) senior. my new series will basically act as a web diary, embodying my weekly wandering thoughts through sketches and ramblings in the hopes that anyone can relate (or at the very least, spark some reflection in a reader or two). i hope that i will keep myself accountable in sitting down and reflecting every week here!

this week’s diary sketch (◡̈ ):

this week’s diary entry（˶′◡‵˶）:

in this week’s entry, i wanted to talk about confidence and self-perception. like many people, i grew up kind of “ugly”, though i didn’t really know it. i finished middle school and most of high school with very little awareness and even less dating experience. it was only when i started college, eager to dive head-first into an exciting pool of new experiences, that i started exploring dating apps, going on blind dates (that always failed), and getting with random strangers on Necto Friday nights. looking back, i was both insecure and brazen in my confidence.

now, as a senior, i feel like i’ve finally developed a stronger sense of self, something achieved only through a painful process of letting go of what used to feel right. i like to think i’ve gained individuality, maturity, and confidence. naturally, that’s come with greater self-awareness of myself and my body. in fact, until a few months ago, i dont think i even really knew what my face or body looked like.

but what’s strange is that now that i’ve gained this awareness, i’ve become more controlling and anxious of myself. even when i’m alone, i find myself constantly evaluating myself from an outside perspective. somewhere during this process of self-discovery, i’ve become more anxious. despite the fact that i’m perceived as more “desirable” than before, i can’t do a lot of the things i did freshman year, like going on blind dates. the idea of putting myself out there gives me a sense of uneasiness, the type that makes you feel like your throat is closing up.

recently, i had a chat with a friend about this. it was past midnight, and we were sitting under the warm, dim kitchen light in my apartment. she quoted Margaret Atwood at me: “you are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. you are your own voyeur.” she had prefaced it with, “i’m sure you already know this quote…” (i nodded yeah, even though i hadn’t). even as someone who’s queer, who does not identify as a woman or seek out men romantically, i find myself relating a lot to that quote. particularly when I present femininely, i catch myself watching from an outside perspective—and in doing so, reaching for some feminine beauty standard, especially in clubbing or dating contexts.

my friend continued by arguing about how sexualization and objectification aren’t the same thing. people are used to being the “subject” in their thoughts. but when they are forced to view themselves from an outside perspective, you suddenly become the object, creating that feeling of uncomfortableness and dissonance with yourself. this sense of objectification is not limited to sexual contexts, but also racial or cultural ones where someone may be depersonalized due to their race or other aspects of their identity.

W.E.B. Dubois has written about the idea of double consciousness, which describes how black Americans experience a “peculiar sensation” of always looking at themselves through the eyes of others, particularly white society, who views them through a lens of racism and marginalization. don’t get me wrong, my experience and privilege as a light-skinned east Asian is very different to that of black Americans. yet, i’ve always related to the feeling of “two-ness” that Dubois described. even as a young child, i was hyperaware of my race and how i was being viewed as a girl and an Asian. because of this, i’ve always felt a conflict between my internal identity as an individual and the external perception of that identity. in response, i would actively counteract the way I believed I was being racially and femininely perceived through my behavior and dress. finding out who i am and which people i want to surround myself by has been incredibly helpful, but i still find myself feeling this way at times.

my own feelings of uncomfortability rises from being perceived in ways that i know differ from my internal identity. the more aware i become of my body and other’s perceptions of me, the more i can cater myself into something stylish, interesting, and charming. at the same time, i become more anxious about my image and feel less like myself.

i wonder if anyone feels something similar. is the real answer not to engage in “self-improvement”, but “self-neutrality”? to yourself and body? how do i be both self-aware and comfortable with external perception? does having a “glow up” really mean you’ve gained confidence or self-acceptance? i don’t know, but i hope this made anyone who reads this reflect. sorry for the excessively long first post, see you next week!

-dai

⊹ ₊ ⁺‧₊˚ ♡ ପ(๑•ᴗ•๑)ଓ ♡˚₊‧⁺ ₊ ⊹

weekly recommendations!!

  • book: Martyr! – Kaveh Akbar
  • album: We’re Not Here To Be Loved – Fleshwater
  • show/movie: Mob Psycho 100
  • food: chicken mofongo

LOG_043_SALT_FLATS

Traveler Leave a comment

Sunset over the salt flats of HKC 2901 c coinciding with the rise of its sister planet over the southern mountain ranges. Much of the land is barren on 2901c, sparsely broken by jagged peaks and scrub lands, but the desolation belies a bounty of natural resources. Here, a cargo maglev races across the mirror-like surface, chasing the last glimmer of light.

Crooked Fool: I love theatre, but it has some problems…

Cydney Marie Leave a comment

“Why do you do theatre?”

I’ve heard a lot of answers to this question. For me, a lot of it comes down to the way the artform pushes us to trust our own instincts and explore heightened states of being. There’s also a humanizing element to live performance that I think is incredibly powerful. But one answer that I hear over and over, and one that also holds true for me, is community. It’s being an integral part of an ensemble and being fully seen by both the cast and crew and the audience.

A couple of years ago, I was fully, 100% ready to quit theatre for good. I was tired of the rigid hierarchies, of petty politics and fragile egos, and of being told that my basic needs had no place in the rehearsal space. When I eventually dipped a reluctant toe back in, it was the feeling of community and being wanted that brought me back.

At the same time, that particular production  was laden with the same tempers, toxicity, and director’s-desires-over-human-needs mentality that made me want to quit in the first place.

Theatre is one of those places people go to feel seen and to be part of something. At its best, it’s a place where people can be valued and welcome and exist in wholeness in ways they can’t elsewhere. I do believe that theatre is sacred.

But that doesn’t mean we have to cling fearfully and unquestioningly to its norms and power structures.

Ideologies that tell us to “leave our baggage at the door” and that the “show must go on” regardless of our needs deny us humanity. They insist that our main value is to the show and that our value and needs as people are secondary. In denying accommodations for needs, these ways of thinking can also become incredibly ableist, and even if accommodations are given with relatively little pushback, the labor of getting needs met still falls disproportionately on the marginalized and minoritized people in the room.

We all know that commitment and heightened expression are hallmarks of theatre, and they do have tremendous power to elevate a scene and affect an audience. But no human being can be at 100% plus all the time. Perhaps this is a byproduct of a late-stage capitalist society that doesn’t appropriately value or fund the arts, but thespians don’t always get a lot of rest. On top of juggling day jobs and the realities of gig work, we’re expected to come and do sometimes demanding emotional and physical work for hours more on top of everything else. Where’s the conversation about balance? And where’s the respect for varying capacities? If somebody has a health condition or even just life circumstances that limit their capacity to explore that 100 every moment of rehearsal, are we just going to write them off as a bad actor and take away their place in the industry? All that does is lose us good storytellers, and closing out unique talents and perspectives just limits the craft as a whole.

And then there are the hierarchies. The egos. Maybe it is actually a good idea to listen if your stage manager says “places,” but is it also great to not be able to question the director if they’re offering a potentially harmful or problematic interpretation of a story? Or what if a direction is being given that isn’t possible to follow, whether for reasons of ability, mental/emotional health, or because it increases marginalization of the actors or the characters? We probably all have blind spots, but that’s why we have to be accountable to each other and continually do the work to educate ourselves. Not everyone steps up and does that work, and even for those who do, we’re human. We can’t know everything and we always have to be open to learning, and that’s especially true for those of us with privileged identities.

Theatre itself may be powerful and sacred, but it’s just as corrupted as anything else by the colonized, carceral, capitalist society we live in. Questioning rigid norms is not a disservice to the artform, it is the ultimate form of respect. Taking steps to ensure that every artist in the room can show up in wholeness and complexity, without erasing any part of themselves, maintains integrity in storytelling and ensures that valuable voices are not shut out of the room. Ignoring needs only prevents people from accessing their full potential. The greatness of theatre is dependent not on upholding every industry norm, but on asking tough questions about what the artform is capable of and how our unwillingness to change may be holding it back.

Theatre is absolutely a place where people can go to be whole, seen, and part of a community, but that only remains true if we commit to keeping it so the same way we commit to our objectives onstage. Examining power structures and community norms based in scarcity, unnecessary urgency, and privilege does not diminish excellence, it is a commitment to it. When we hold power in the room, whether because of our identities or our role in the production, we have the responsibility to put checks on that power, and doing so serves both the production and the theatre communities we love and that love us back. But that does mean stepping into the discomfort of questioning entrenched industry practices. It’s hard, it’s uncomfortable, and in the case of directors or producers who prize compliance, it can even be a career risk, but it is necessary to keep theatre sacred.