I spent the last few days converting the guest room1 to my new office, after giving it two coats of The Plaza and moving my computer out of the bedroom. This decision was spurred by the fact that I found myself spending an unhealthy amount of time in a single room of the house, the exceptions being when I was eating or pooping. Now my work area is delightfully bright, and I have a view of the summer foliage out of the front of the house.
With half the furniture now moved out, the master bedroom looks especially minimal. I’m keeping some of my photography lighting in there, including a large softbox, which is a decoration that fills the room nicely but also makes it look like a cheap porn set.
I used to be trepidatious about certain things, like committing to a paint colour or walking into a room with large numbers of people, but now I find it a lot easier to get over my anxiety. It makes me think my anxiety used to affect me more than I realized. Doing things that were out of my comfort zone was a test I needed to give myself every now and then, but now I don’t find those things to be uncomfortable at all, and I tend to act without thinking too much or overanalyzing.
I wonder if this is what normal feels like. And how much of it is personal growth versus the medication.
In either case, it’s nice to be getting thing done again, when I had so recently found it hard just getting out of bed. Someone related to me his experience on pharmaceutical psychotropics, and he said the period was marked less by what he wrote or created, and more by what he did or people he met and connected with. For me, it seems to be manifesting itself as a period of change and productivity.
- Which, until last week, looked like this. [↩]
It looks so nice and bright!
Damnit, I’m going for a triple monitor setup too! Though my third one is an old 19 inch rather than a 23 inch like the rest of monitors.
I quite like minimal myself, or at least the look of having everything in its place. Sadly I am too much of a pack rat to have empty spaces in my apartment. I do spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to make the best use of old junk and used spaces though, that at least is part of my coping mechanism.
I was considering a triple 30″ or a quadruple 27″ monitor setup, but I’d need to upgrade my video cards in addition to buying the screens, so it didn’t make financial sense for me at the moment. But yeah, I find having that much real-estate is really valuable.
I’m also a huge pack rat, and I had to throw out / give away a bunch of things to make room, cause I was using the spare bedroom as storage. I didn’t get rid of as much as I wanted, but I was able to organize some things a lot better; there’s something very satisfying about making the best use of a space, that sort of feeds back into the pack rat mentality.
Hey, aren’t the arm chair and the stool an Ikea set? The colour coordination of the room is quite neat and tidy. Great design.
You never struck me as a handyman type. Great paint job! There must be a great sense of achievement. Interestingly, manual work can usually enhance one’s mental state.
We do need to do things that are out of our comfort zones, so we can say to ourselves, “Gee, that wasn’t so difficult afterall.” That improves our self-confidence. To quote the cliche again, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.”
Yep, all of this furniture (aside from the rug and the plants) are things that were part of a matching set in my bedroom, so that’s why it still all matches. I wanted to add a touch of green to bring some life into the office, so I picked up a few extra cheap decorations at Ikea.
I’m not a handyman at all, and I’ve never done as big a job as this by myself. That’s part of the reason I wanted this kind of project: to prove to myself that I could do it. And there’s definitely a strong sense of fulfilment that comes along with that.
My agglommeration is getting the better of me year by year as you’re stripping things down.… I would do well to follow.… I need a studio.
Good to know, and surprised, that you feel like encounters with others are nothing to sweat by comparison now. Very interesting; perhaps you were dealing with more anxiety than we knew?.
Right now I’m trying to strip away my material possessions to the bare minimum, but I wouldn’t have felt this way if I didn’t go through a phase of collection as well. I think everyone should go through that kind of cycle; it’s refreshing. It sounds like you just need to wait until you learn what you need and what you don’t before.