I loved it. I loved being alone in a settee where I could spend time watching people moved like a French novel translated into a Cannesque film. I enjoyed facing the army of wooden park benches that looked like a burlesque structures teasing me to sit in apathy. And I took pleasure in choosing which one had the least dab of the rain, so I could sit without having a wet map-like mark on my butt. I also loved being alone in an open bar, with a Cognac glass tucked between my pointy and middle finger, reviewing the dusk as if I was recording the silent intercourse of pale orange and azure darkness. And I would go home with a smile, locked myself in my bedroom where I would sprawl like a careless Czech model, start endless line of sketches as If I were a journalist documenting my boredom. I would draw ‘til morning.
What made me draw was the same thing that convinced me to pick up designing.
University days came, and the reason why I chose an artsy course was still boredom. Or if introvertism would be a perfect word for it, a more proper term rather, then so be it. Advertising Arts was the only closer thing to sketching at that time, so I just gladly wrote it on my entrance exam paper. Luckily, I passed and spent five years with sketchbooks, computer programs and museums. I never joined a group nor made friends with people. I conversed only when it was needed; I remembered having a few chat with my professors about school matters and with the pantry clerk to get my free meal during meal stub Fridays, but I could not remember myself talking to people about mundane matters.
I knew that time would come that I needed to adapt with this so-called growing-up, and I was certain that I could not be that introvert person forever. So I joined a design firm months after graduation, mingled with a bunch of intellectual designers whom had impressive art degrees and paper recognitions from France, Italy, and other artsy countries. I made friends, tried to forget myself, learned how to laugh—a faint one—and joined a hatful of loudmouths. I attended parties, coffee midnights, and even the ever-dour video game Sundays. I somehow became a new man, a friendly ex-introvert young adult man. But I just felt faking myself. I felt like a fake poseur, a fake intellectual, and a fake me. I am not really into people, I said to myself. I just wanted to design, and I believed that these parties and companionship had nothing to do with the thing I wanted, which is to be a designer. Actually, I didn’t even thought of having a career. I just want to draw, or perhaps, to design. Vague, but that’s it.
My officemates were all okay, I mean they were good people, and they did nothing wrong to me. It was just that I loathed being around with great individuals who had this habitual—and inevitable—tendency of bragging their achievements in public, especially during work time. No, it was not just that. I just wanted to be alone. And while they bragged, all I could do was revisit my same, old effective therapy to loneliness—drawing, sketching, throwing endless pencil lines to forget the world around me.
The thing was, I couldn’t design well every time these office “friends” of mine took time to peek at my monitor, especially when they brushed their shoulders against me. It was not me. Just that. I couldn’t concentrate with my design if there was a single soul beside me. For me, shutting the mouth for the whole 8 hours was equivalent to splendid talking. I wanted to talk on my mind, through my brain, and not with my mouth. Besides, I was not a good talker, too. Once I talked, I remembered, I ended up hurting people’s feelings, left them crying, sobbing—especially girls. So that was it. Ambience affected my work mood, my conceptualization, and my entire design process. I pleaded for a rest, a vacation leave, and my boss graciously said YES, but went back with same empty and annoyed feeling after three weeks, for I resumed working on the same table, in the same room filled with same old officemates.
But I knew that I couldn’t be like that forever. So I decided to endure the heaviness these people were giving to me. I listened to their words, tried to understand their lives. The reason behind their inane jokes, their innate intellectual prowess and the story behind the wonderful things they possessed— great things I never had. To get the hang of their presence, I drew as they bragged and I committed lines on my sketchbook as they talked. All I did was sketch as they talked. Sometimes, I even drew what’s in their stories, like drawing a quick storyboard flow direct from the advertising director’s mouth. Surprisingly, although gradual, after months of doing such burdensome things and after getting the hang of their presence through drawing and sketching, I became used to it. I learned to understand them; I learned how to design while understanding them. Their occasional prying about my recent campaigns, my monitor, and my design (and as well as my personal life) didn’t fall annoying anymore. I fell in love with the ambience, with the people, with their stories, life, and short talks. It may sound magical, but it really did happen. I swear.
That’s why my design life—or career, if you may—is so valuable to me. Design is my life. The reason why I draw and design.
And now it’s not boredom anymore. It’s life.
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