The myth of the perfect, clean workspace
a moodboard on the performance of perfection and the mess of creative work.
by Alex Dobrenko · updated 4mo ago
The myth of the perfect, clean workspace
I was talking to a younger friend about this a while back—your Internet presence is increasingly more valuable than your real-life presence. Which is weird and dystopian and I don’t really know how to think about it. But it’s true, and I think people who are like, I don’t need the Internet , don’t understand the extent to which much of the p
... See morefrom life on the internet by Ava
Alex Dobrenko added 4mo ago
- One thing this does is gives a false view of success. Most of what people share is what they want you to see. Skills are advertised, flaws are hidden. Wins are exaggerated, losses are downplayed. Doubt and anxiety are rarely shared on social media. Defeated soldiers and failed CEOs rarely sit for interviews.
from How People Think by collaborativefund.com
Alex Dobrenko added 4mo ago
You see, I have always found it difficult to understand that in fact one can only be oneself. Who else could you be? Changeability and hypocrisy and performance are parts of who we are. And what is empirical reality, anyway?
from Bjarki, Not Bjarki by Matthew J. C. Clark
Alex Dobrenko added 4mo ago
- Anne Helen Petersen has written about the “professionalization” of homes, thanks to the “market-reflected gaze,” and I think that this extends to the creative space as well—we base our expectations of our creative spaces not off of how we work best, but what we think creative spaces should look like. That clean and organized aesthetic also overflow... See more
from The Mess of a Creative Space
Alex Dobrenko added 4mo ago
- Cleanliness—as the saying goes, and many of us have probably internalized—is next to godliness. To be clean: good. To be messy: bad. While cleanliness might indicate a space free of many things, it’s heavily ladened with value judgement.
We reflect that judgement onto ourselves, resulting in the shame that’s present in that third question in my pol... See morefrom The Mess of a Creative Space
Alex Dobrenko added 4mo ago
- Maybe one of the biggest problems with the internet is we post what we think we see and then cite ourselves as the evidence that that thing is reality.
from Toil We Must by Kyle Harrison
Alex Dobrenko added 4mo ago
- We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
―
Kurt Vonnegut,
Mother Nightfrom A quote from Mother Night
Alex Dobrenko added 4mo ago
- This makes its way into our subconscious, influencing our own tendency to crop things out or move things around if we’re going to take a picture of our creative space. Oh the horror if someone were to learn that real life was happening in the same place you make art!
from The Mess of a Creative Space
Alex Dobrenko added 4mo ago
So we may need to think of ourselves as always living a double life, the one that we wish for and the one that we practice; the one that never happens and the one that keeps happening.
from Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life by Adam Phillips
Alex Dobrenko added 4mo ago